Iraqi IS man charged with genocide in Yazidi ‘slave’ case

BERLIN: An Iraqi suspected of belonging to the Islamic State Jihadist group will face charges of murder and genocide, German prosecutors said on Friday, accused especially of letting a five-year-old "slave" girl die of thirst.

Taha A.-J. is the husband of Jennifer W., a woman who has been on trial in Munich since last year over accusations that the two mistreated a Yazidi mother and daughter, before allowing the young girl to die. The case against the couple has been described by media and lawyers as the first time worldwide that an IS member has been tried for crimes against the Yazidis, a religious minority which suffered brutal persecution at the hands of the Jihadists from 2014.

Prosecutors allege that A.-J., who joined IS in 2013, purchased the Yazidi child and her mother as household "slaves" and held them captive while living with Jennifer W. in then IS-occupied Mosul, Iraq, in 2015. Their actions were aimed at "destroying the Yazidis, their religion and their culture in keeping with the aims of IS," the prosecutors´ statement said. The couple are alleged to have forced the mother and daughter to convert to Islam, starved them of food and water and subjected them to beatings.