German Police Detain Iraqi Couple Suspected of Genocide for Enslaving Yazidi Girls

On Wednesday, federal prosecutors announced that German police had detained an Iraqi couple suspected of being Islamic State group members. The couple is accused of committing genocide and crimes against humanity for enslaving two Yazidi girls.

Two individuals identified as Twana H. S. and Asia R. A., whose last names were not disclosed in accordance with German privacy regulations, were taken into custody on Tuesday due to their actions towards the girls during the years 2015 to 2017 in Iraq and Syria.

According to prosecutors, the girls endured physical abuse, repeated rape, and were forbidden from practicing their religion. Prior to departing Syria in November 2017, the couple passed the girls on to other IS members, as outlined in a statement by the prosecution.

“All of this served the organisation’s objective to destroy the Yazidi religion,” they added.

German prosecutors have used universal jurisdiction laws that allow them to prosecute crimes against humanity committed anywhere in the world to bring such cases to trial.

In a landmark ruling in 2021, a German court sentenced a former IS member to life in prison for being involved in genocide and crimes against humanity against Yazidis. Two years later, German lawmakers recognised crimes committed by IS militants against Yazidis in Iraq in 2014 as genocide.

The extremist group killed thousands of Yazidis, enslaved 7,000 Yazidi women and girls and displaced most of the 550,000-strong community from their ancestral home in northern Iraq.

The Yazidis are an ancient religious minority in eastern Syria and northwest Iraq that IS targeted for their faith that combines elements of Zoroastrian, Jewish, Manichean, Christian and Muslim beliefs.