The Higher Regional Court of Munich has sentenced a Kurdish ISIS member to life imprisonment for crimes committed against two Ezidi girls in Iraq.
The man’s former partner (also a Kurd) was sentenced to nine years and six months under juvenile criminal law because she was still an adolescent when the crimes began. The convictions included genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, membership in ISIS and serious offences against children.
The court found that the two defendants bought and held the girls captive between 2015 and 2017. The children, aged approximately five and twelve at the time, were subjected to forced labour, physical abuse and sexual violence before being transferred to other ISIS members.
The man was convicted of repeatedly raping both girls. The court also found that his former partner supported and facilitated the abuse.
One of the survivors participated in the proceedings as a joint plaintiff and attended the delivery of the judgment. The younger girl remains missing.
The defendants were arrested in Bavaria in April 2024. The proceedings before the Munich court lasted more than a year and examined their individual responsibility for crimes committed as members of ISIS.
The Central Council of Ezidis in Germany welcomed the judgment as an important step in the prosecution of genocide and conflict-related sexual violence. It also stressed that thousands of Ezidi women and children abducted during the 2014 genocide remain missing.
The ruling adds to a growing number of German cases in which ISIS members have been prosecuted for genocide, crimes against humanity and crimes committed against Ezidi victims.
