New Delhi: A German court has sentenced an Iraqi couple linked to the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) to lengthy prison terms after convicting them of enslaving, torturing, sexually abusing and forcibly converting two young Yazidi girls in Iraq.
The verdict, delivered by the Higher Regional Court in Munich, is one of Germany’s strongest judicial responses to atrocities committed against the Yazidi community during ISIS’s campaign of terror and marks the country’s first conviction for the crime of forced religious conversion.
The male defendant, identified under German privacy laws as Twana H.S., was sentenced to life imprisonment, while his former wife, Asia R.A., received a juvenile sentence of nine and a half years. The couple, who had most recently been living in Germany, were arrested in the southern state of Bavaria in April 2024 before being brought to trial.
The court found both defendants guilty of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, sexually abusing children and aiding and abetting these offences. According to prosecutors, the crimes were committed between 2015 and 2017 while the couple lived in territory controlled by ISIS in Iraq and Syria.
Investigators established that the couple purchased two Yazidi girls as slaves in Iraq when the children were five and 12 years old. Treated as property from the moment they were bought, the girls were subjected to years of brutal exploitation, forced labour, physical torture and systematic abuse.
Prosecutors told the court that the young victims were compelled to carry out gruelling household work while enduring repeated violence. The court further found that Twana H.S. repeatedly raped both children, while Asia R.A. actively facilitated and supported the abuse, making her complicit in the crimes committed against the girls.
A campaign of terror against the Yazidis
The verdict comes against the backdrop of ISIS’s internationally documented campaign of genocide against the Yazidi minority in Iraq and Syria. Germany is among several countries that have formally recognised ISIS’s atrocities against the Yazidis as genocide.
The court ruled that the defendants not only enslaved the girls but also systematically attempted to erase their religious identity. They were prohibited from practising Yazidism and instead forced to adopt Islam under ISIS ideology.
Presiding Judge Philipp Stoll said Monday’s judgment represented Germany’s first conviction for forced religious conversion, holding the couple criminally responsible for coercing the girls to abandon their Yazidi faith.
One of the survivors attended the proceedings in Munich and broke down in tears as the verdict was read. During the judgment, Judge Stoll read part of the victim’s testimony, in which she recalled the degrading conditions under which they lived.
“Even dogs were held in higher regard than we were,” the survivor’s statement said. Federal prosecutors described the crimes as among the gravest imaginable. “The monstrous violence is so far removed from any sense of humanity that it seems unreal,” a representative of the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office told the court.
Forced conversion added to catalogue of atrocities
Beyond the physical and sexual violence, prosecutors argued that the religious persecution formed an integral part of ISIS’s genocidal campaign against the Yazidis. According to the court, the girls were prevented from practising their own religion and were instead indoctrinated with ISIS ideology while being compelled to follow Islam.
The ruling therefore establishes an important legal precedent in Germany by recognising forced religious conversion as a criminal offence in the context of genocide and crimes against humanity.
During the proceedings, the now 30-year-old Asia R.A. apologised for her actions before the court. Her former husband, however, declined to testify throughout the trial. The prosecution argued that the couple fully embraced ISIS’s ideology while operating inside territory controlled by the terrorist organisation between 2015 and 2017. Their treatment of the two Yazidi girls reflected the systematic enslavement, sexual violence and religious persecution inflicted by ISIS on thousands of Yazidi women and children during the terror group’s occupation of parts of Iraq and Syria.
The case also underscored the continued pursuit of accountability for ISIS crimes years after the organisation lost its territorial control. German authorities arrested the couple after they had settled in Bavaria, enabling prosecutors to bring charges under Germany’s international crimes legislation.
With life imprisonment for Twana H.S. and a nine-and-a-half-year juvenile sentence for Asia R.A., the Munich court’s judgment sends a strong signal that perpetrators of genocide, child sexual violence, slavery and religious persecution can still face justice long after the crimes were committed.
For survivors of ISIS’s campaign against the Yazidis, the ruling represents another significant step in documenting the brutality they endured and ensuring that those responsible are held accountable before a court of law.
