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The hearing in the case of genocide, crimes against humanity and serious war crimes in Syria began on Monday in the Stockholm District Court. The trial is to last until December.
1 / 3Photo: Claudio Bresciani/TT
IS attempted to exterminate the Yazidi minority through executions, forced displacement and enslavement. A 52-year-old woman from western Sweden will be put on trial in Stockholm on Monday for complicity in the genocide.
– All the acts of (NN) have taken place with the aim of completely or partially annihilating the Yazidi ethnic group, says the prosecutor.
The woman was already sentenced in the spring of 2022 to six years in prison for serious war crimes, after she took her son to the Islamic State in Syria and let him become a child soldier, where he later died at the age of 16.
On Monday, the 52-year-old from western Sweden had to appear again for trial, this time accused of crimes against humanity, genocide and gross war crimes.
The woman, with shoulder-length gray hair, dark glasses and wearing a light pink blouse, announces via her defender Mikael Westerlund that she refuses.
Prosecutor Reena Devgun alleges that between 2014 and 2015 she kept six children and three women as slaves in her home in Syrian Al-Raqqa, then the capital of the IS so-called caliphate.
Genocide according to the UN
All nine plaintiffs belong to the Yazidi minority, which IS intended to exterminate as a people group, according to the UN, among others. The nine were captured and taken to Syria in connection with the terrorist group’s attack on the Yazidis at Sinjar in northern Iraq in August 2014.
They have been bought and sold several times within IS, and during periods between 2014 and 2015 were enslaved in the 52-year-old’s home.
There, she treated them like slaves and humiliated them in various ways, including threatening and beating them, and forcing them to convert to Islam, according to prosecutor Reena Devgun.
– NN (the 52-year-old) has subjected the plaintiffs to severe suffering, torture or other inhumane treatment, she says.
Sold on
She later sold them on to other IS supporters, where they ran a great risk of being killed or continued to be subjected to severe suffering, including serious sexual abuse, says the prosecutor.
Decisive for the prosecution is the context in which the woman’s actions have taken place, namely IS’s attempt to exterminate the Yazidis as a group.
– Genocide can be committed through individual acts, provided that the act forms part of a pattern of similar acts. Therefore, it is important to understand the context in which they are committed, says Reena Devgun
The woman traveled to Syria in 2013 to live in the Islamic State with her husband – also from Sweden – who died shortly after they arrived.
FACTSFirst prosecution of IS genocide of Yazidis
In September, a 52-year-old woman was charged at the Stockholm District Court with crimes against humanity, genocide and serious war crimes. The woman denies any wrongdoing.
According to the indictment, the 52-year-old enslaved six Yazidi children and three women in his residence in Syrian al-Raqqa between 2014 and 2015, when the city was under the control of the terrorist group IS.
The indictment is the first in Sweden regarding crimes against humanity, and the first to test IS attacks against the Yazidi minority. In Europe, similar charges have previously only been brought in Germany.
The woman grew up in western Sweden and traveled to Syria in 2013 to live in the Islamic State with her husband. In 2022, she was sentenced for a serious war crime and a serious violation of international law to six years in prison, when she brought her then twelve-year-old son to Syria and let him become a child soldier in IS. The boy was killed aged 16 in Syria.
Source: The Public Prosecutor’s Office
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