German court sentences IS bride to 10 years in prison over war crime
Oct 26, 2021
Munich [Germany], October 26 : A German woman who had joined the Islamic State group in 2013, was sentenced to ten years in prison over a war crime by a Munich court on Monday.
A Munich court presided by judge Reinhold Baier handed down the verdict to Jennifer Wenisch, 30, over the war crime of letting a five-year-old Yazidi "slave" girl die of thirst in the sun, reported France 24.
This is the first conviction anywhere in the world related to the Islamic State group's persecution of the Yazidi community.
German prosecutors alleged Wenisch and her IS husband "purchased" a Yazidi woman and child as household "slaves" whom they held captive while living in then IS-occupied Mosul, Iraq, in 2015, reported France 24.
"After the girl fell ill and wet her mattress, the husband of the accused chained her up outside as punishment and let the child die an agonising death of thirst in the scorching heat," prosecutors charge.
"The accused allowed her husband to do so and did nothing to save the girl."
Wenisch's husband, Taha al-Jumailly, is also facing trial in separate proceedings in Frankfurt, where the verdict is due in late November.
Identified only by her first name Nora, the Yazidi girl's mother has repeatedly testified in both Munich and Frankfurt about the torment allegedly visited on her child.
According to other media reports, Wenisch converted to Islam in 2013 and travelled the following year via Turkey and Syria to Iraq where she joined IS.
Recruited in mid-2015 to the group's self-styled hisbah morality police, she patrolled city parks in IS-occupied Fallujah and Mosul.
Armed with an AK-47 assault rifle, a pistol and an explosives vest, her task was to ensure strict IS rules on dress code and public behaviour and bans on alcohol and tobacco, reported France24.
In January 2016, she visited the German embassy in Ankara to apply for new identity papers. When she left the mission, she was arrested and extradited days later to Germany.
Wenisch's trial, which began in April 2019, is one of the first examples of formal proceedings anywhere in the world related to the Islamic State group's persecution of the Yazidi community, reported France24.
