A Swedish girl has been sentenced to 12 years in jail for committing genocide and conflict crimes towards the Yazidi folks after she joined jihadist group Islamic State (IS) in Syria.
Lina Ishaq, 52, was discovered responsible of holding three Yazidi ladies and 6 Yazidi kids as slaves in Raqqa between 2014-2016 in September final 12 months.
It’s the first time IS crimes towards the Yazidis, one among Iraq’s spiritual minorities, have been tried in Sweden.
Ishaq joined IS and moved her household to Syria in 2013. She is already serving jail sentences for taking her two year-old son to Syria and “failing to stop” IS from utilizing her 12-year-old son as a toddler soldier. He died in 2017, aged 16.
Ishaq compelled her prisoners to put on a veil and practise Islam, and she or he bodily assaulted them.
“The convicted girl was a part of the large-scale enslavement system which IS launched for Yazidi ladies and youngsters,” stated Stockholm District Court docket presiding decide, Maria Ulfsdotter Klang.
“She has acted independently in sustaining the enslavement and deprivation of liberty of the victims and contributed to trafficking them additional.”
The Yazidis are an historic spiritual minority based mostly largely within the Sinjar area of northern Iraq.
In early August 2014 IS invaded Yazidi settlements within the Sinjar area launching a genocidal marketing campaign towards them.
Over a interval of three years about 5,000 Yazidis have been killed by IS and half 1,000,000 folks have been displaced.
Greater than 6,000 ladies and youngsters have been taken captive and held as slaves. IS members tortured their detainees and subjected them to strategic sexual violence aiming to eradicate the Yazidi folks, in line with the UN.
Lina Ishaq was born in Iraq to a Christian household, who moved to Sweden when she was a toddler, Swedish media report. She transformed to Islam previous to her marriage.
Together with round 300 different Swedish nationals, 1 / 4 of them ladies, Ishaq joined IS in 2013.
When the so-called IS caliphate started to break down in 2017, Ishaq fled Raqqa and escaped to Turkey. She was extradited to Sweden in 2020.
Sweden is now residence to round 6,000 Yazidis.
Dawood Khalaf, chairman of the Yazidi affiliation in Skaraborg has stated Ishaq’s prosecution has helped construct belief between the neighborhood in Sweden and native authorities.
“I do know ladies who’ve been known as for questioning by Swedish police who haven’t dared to testify for worry of being handed over to IS,” he instructed public broadcaster SVT. “After this indictment, the image has modified.”
Ishaq’s lawyer Mikael Westerlund stated Ishaq nonetheless denied the costs and would contemplate an enchantment.