Justice for genocide: Yazidis hopeful as Islamic State trial opens in Germany
An Iraqi man is on trial in a German court for human trafficking and genocide against the Yazidis.
Over 2,000 miles away from former Islamic State (IS) territory in Iraq, a court in Frankfurt, Germany, began Friday what's considered the world’s first trial for genocide against the Yazidi religious minority.
The suspect, identified only as Taha Al-J under German privacy laws, is a 37-year-old Iraqi national extradited from Greece to Germany in October 2019. According to the indictment, he purchased and enslaved a Yazidi woman and her 5-year-old daughter in the summer of 2015.
Prosecutors allege Taha Al-J brought the mother and daughter to the IS-occupied Iraqi city of Fallujah, where he forced them to convert to Islam and regularly deprived them of food and water. To punish the girl for wetting her bed, Taha Al-J chained her to a window outside and let her die of thirst in the desert heat, prosecutors say.
The suspected IS militant stands accused of crimes against humanity, war crimes, human trafficking and, notably, genocide. His wife, a German national who joined IS, is being tried separately in Munich.
