Germany gives life sentence to ISIS member over Yazidi genocide

A German court sentenced an ex-Islamic State member to life in prison on Tuesday for participating in genocide and crimes against humanity as part of the the mass murder of the Yazidis in Iraq.

The court’s ruling was the first genocide verdict handed down to a member of the Islamic State, which controlled large sections of Iraq and Syria before being defeated by a US-led offensive in 2019, Reuters reported.

The Frankfurt court convicted Iraqi citizen Taha al-Jumailly, 29, of being involved in the killing of over 3,000 Yazidis and the enslavement of 7,000 Yazidi girls and women by the Islamic State in 2014 and 2015.

The judge said that the conviction included the killing of a five-year old girl that al-Jumailly had made a slave and chained to a window, where the girl died of heat exposure.

The defendant was arrested in 2019 in Greece where he was extradited to Germany to face charges.

Family members of murdered Yazidis were plaintiffs for the prosecution along with Al-Jumailly's German wife, who was identified by the court as Jennifer W.

In October, she received a 10 year jail sentence for her role in enslaving the Yazidi girl and her mother.

The Islamic State displaced nearly the entire population of 550,000 Yazidis in Iraq and Syria during its campaign of genocide and terror.