German court finds Islamic State member guilty of enslaving Yazidi woman News
Holger Weinandt, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, via Wikimedia Commons
German court finds Islamic State member guilty of enslaving Yazidi woman

The Higher Regional Court of Koblenz convicted 37-year-old German citizen and former Islamic State (IS) member Nadine K. on Wednesday of unlawfully possessing weapons of war and keeping a 22-year-old Yazidi woman as a “household slave.” Nadine K was sentenced to 9 years imprisonment.

The defendant is a German citizen who met her husband, who was a Syrian doctor, in 2013 and converted to his religion, Islam.  The couple then moved to Syria in 2014 and willingly joined the IS, after which they moved again to Iraq, where the husband worked as a doctor for the IS.

The court found that in April 2016, the husband took the then-21-year-old Yazidi woman, who had been abducted from her homeland and taken by the IS after several transfers, as a slave. The IS gave her to him as a “gift.” The victim was with Nadine K. and her husband for a period of three years, during which she was forced to cook, clean, and care for their animals and daughters. She was not allowed to leave the house unaccompanied or contact her family. The husband also regularly raped the victim, with the knowledge of Nadine K.

In late 2016, the couple moved back to Syria, bringing the victim, and remained there until March 2019, when the Kurdish forces arrested them and imprisoned the husband. In March 2021, Nadine K. went back to Germany and was arrested by German authorities at the Frankfurt International Airport.

The court concluded that while staying in Iraq and Syria, the defendant and her husband clearly viewed the witness as their “property.” She was convicted of offenses including crimes against humanity through enslavement, deprivation of liberty and persecution, aiding and abetting in genocide through extermination, and aiding and abetting in crimes against humanity through extermination, expulsion, and sexual violence. The defendant was also acquitted of a looting charge.

According to the German International Criminal Code, genocide includes the killing of a group member by force, with the intent to destroy the whole group. The case is not the first one in Germany involving accusations of genocide against the Yazidi community. In November 2021, an Iraqi national was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment by a Frankfurt court for killing a five-year-old Yazidi girl.

In addition to genocide, the court was also convinced that during their stay in Iraq, Nadine K. and her husband had been keeping Kalashnikov assault rifles and other weapons without the necessary licenses or permits in violation of the German War Weapons Control Act.

The decision is not final and is appealable to the Federal Court of Justice of Germany.

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