Iraqi ISIS couple sentenced in Munich for enslaving Yazidi girls
The Munich Higher Regional Court sentenced an Iraqi couple, identified as Twana H. S. and Asia R. A., for genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and human trafficking linked to the enslavement of two Yazidi (Jesidi) girls. The court imposed a life sentence on the husband and a nine‑and‑a‑half‑year juvenile‑type sentence on the wife.
Prosecutors said the pair joined the Islamic State between October 2015 and December 2017, bought a five‑year‑old girl in Mosul in 2015 and a twelve‑year‑old girl in 2017, forced them into household work, subjected them to repeated sexual abuse, torture and attempts to erase their Yazidi faith. The man, a former barber who had been radicalised in a Munich mosque, was found to have raped both girls; the woman allegedly assisted, including scalding a child’s hand with hot water.
The trial was conducted under Germany’s universal‑jurisdiction law, allowing German courts to prosecute atrocities committed abroad. The defendants were arrested in Bavaria in April 2024. Victim testimony included emotional statements such as, “Even dogs were worth more than us,” underscoring the brutality of the crimes.