Iraq
Kurdish Peshmerga fighters next to an ISIS sign at the entrance to the northern Iraqi town of Hawija, south of Kirkuk, in March 2015. Photo: AFP
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A Baghdad court on Tuesday handed a death sentence to a suspected member of the Islamic State (ISIS) for “committing genocide” against the Yazidi ethnoreligious minority during the group’s brutal reign, state media reported.
“The criminal, along with members of his military detachment, executed a number of Yazidi citizens and buried them after photographing them and publishing the videos on social media sites affiliated with terrorist gangs,” Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council said in a statement about the ruling by Baghdad’s Karkh Criminal Court.
He is also convicted of attacking security forces in Nineveh and Salahaddin provinces – where ISIS held swathes of territory during their reign.
SIS swept through vast swathes of Iraq and Syria in 2014 and declared a so-called “caliphate” in a brazen offensive that saw the group take control of around a third of Syria’s territory as well as several Iraqi cities, including the second largest northern city of Mosul. It was declared territorially defeated in 2017 and 2019 in both countries respectively.
During the jihadists’ brutal reign, they committed heinous atrocities, such as genocide, sexual slavery, and massacres against non-Muslims, especially the Yazidi ethnoreligious group. Christians and Shiite Muslims were also a target.
More than 6,000 Yazidis were abducted when ISIS overran the community’s heartland of Shingal (Sinjar) in 2014. Around 2,700 remain missing, with little done to bring solace to the rescued.
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