IS woman Lina Ishaq is charged with genocide

IS woman Lina Ishaq is charged with genocide, crimes against humanity and serious war crimes.

According to the indictment, she allegedly held nine people, including children, captive in her former home in Raqqa in Syria.

There, they are said to have been treated as slaves and to have undergone severe suffering, according to the indictment.

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Prosecutor Reena Devgun has filed charges against 52-year-old Lina Ishaq from Halmstad. She is charged with genocide, crimes against humanity and grave war crimes in Raqqa, Syria, from August 2014 to December 2016.

The prosecution is unique in several ways.

It is the first time that an IS attack against the Yazidi minority has been tested in Sweden. It is also the first time that charges for crimes against humanity have been brought in Sweden.

Lina Ishaq is suspected of holding nine people, including children, captive in her home in Raqqa.

Some are said to have been held captive for up to seven months.

They were treated as slaves and subjected to severe suffering, according to the indictment.

During their detention, Ishaq has shown videos of executions and been armed with bomb belts and guns. This is to instill such fear that the persons would not dare to defend themselves, according to the indictment.

Lina Ishaq is also suspected of having forcibly taught people the teachings of Islam and of abusing several of those she held captive. They must also have been forced to wear a full-covering veil.

She is also, according to the accused, to have molested a baby who was said to have been one month old at the time. This by holding a hand over the child’s mouth when he screamed to make him shut up.

She is also suspected of having sold people to IS in the knowledge that they risked being killed or subjected to serious sexual abuse.

All of Lina Ishaq’s actions have taken place with the aim of completely or partially annihilating the Yazidi ethnic group as such, the prosecutor believes.

Lina Ishaq denies all crimes.

Previously convicted of a serious war crime

Lina Ishaq has often been referred to as the IS woman. She has previously been convicted of a serious war crime and a serious violation of international law, for not having prevented her son from becoming a child soldier.

For that she was sentenced to six years in prison. She was placed at the Hinseberg prison outside Örebro.

She was born in Iraq, came to Sweden as a child and grew up in Halmstad.

When she was young, Lina played soccer and danced. After high school, she began studying to become a teacher but dropped out after only three months.

She eventually trained as a nurse and later started working in a hospital. It was also in that vein, in the 90s, that she met her husband.

He was a Muslim and Lina converted to Islam and was eventually radicalized.

Traveled with the children to Syria in 2013

Together they had five children with whom they traveled to Syria in 2013 to join the terrorist sect IS.

The children were then 14, 12, 10 and 5 years old. Lina herself was heavily pregnant.

Her husband died in Syria the same year they arrived there. Lina then remarried and had more children.

Lina’s sons were put into training early on and then came to fight for IS before they were of age. Her daughter she married off, then only 12 years old.

In the previous indictment, it appears how Lina Ishaq let the children watch films from when prisoners were beheaded.

“The purpose of her showing them these films was for them to learn jihad,” the indictment states.