An Iraqi court has sentenced one of the deceased leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's wives of the terrorist group IS to death. According to the court, the woman is an accomplice to crimes committed against Yazidi women who were taken captive by IS.
The verdict comes shortly before the tenth anniversary of IS's initiation of a series of attacks against the Yazidi religious minority in the northern Iraqi region of Sinjar in early August 2014. Thousands of people were killed and captured – including women and girls who were subjected to human trafficking and sexual abuse. The UN considers IS's persecution of Yazidis as genocide.
The woman was sentenced, according to a statement from Iraq's Judicial Council, for having "imprisoned Yazidi women in her home" and facilitating the kidnapping of the women.
The woman, who was arrested in 2018 in Turkey, was handed over to Iraqi authorities last year, according to reports to AP.
Survivors of IS attacks in Iraq have complained about shortcomings in the work of holding terrorist group members accountable. At the same time, human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch claim that many of the convictions of IS members occur after confessions under torture, and urge Iraq to abolish the death penalty.
Al-Baghdadi, who proclaimed IS's caliphate in large parts of Iraq and Syria in June 2014, was killed in a US raid in Syria in 2019. Since then, the terrorist group has lost its grip on all areas it previously controlled, although some of its cells continue to carry out attacks.
