German court convicts Iraqi couple for enslaving Yazidi girls

A Munich court convicted an Iraqi man and his wife for enslaving and repeatedly raping Yazidi girls over a period spanning from 2015 to 2017.

The proceedings, carried out at the Munich Higher Regional Court, also found the couple members of the Islamic State, with the man receiving a life sentence for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, and the wife sentenced to nine and a half years.

Twana H.S., who came to Germany in the early 2000s as an asylum seeker, was first denied asylum but was permitted to stay because he had a German child. After radicalisation at a Munich mosque, he returned to Iraq in 2015, where he married Asia R.A. and joined the Islamic State, according to prosecutors.

The indictment states that the couple bought two Yazidi girls, a five‑year‑old and later a twelve‑year‑old, at bazares in Mosul. They enslaved the children, inflicted beatings and sexual abuse, forced them to work and forbade them from practising their religion.

One of the girls, now grown, testified about the abuse she endured, though the other remains missing.

The trial highlights Germany’s application of universal jurisdiction, a legal principle permitting prosecution of war crimes committed abroad. Asia R.A., now separated from her husband, apologized in court, saying, ‘I’m sorry.’ The defendant declined to speak.

The case reflects the ongoing international effort to hold the Islamic State accountable for atrocities committed against the Yazidi community, a Kurdish‑speaking minority that suffered mass killings, enslavement and rape during IS’s offensive in Iraq and Syria.