Woman indicted with genocide, crimes against humanity and serious war crimes in Syria

The investigation shows that the Islamic State, IS, attacked the Yazidi religious minority in Iraq in August 2014. A large number of Yazidi people were killed and thousands of women and children were captured and taken to the area controlled by the IS in Syria.

“Under IS control, the Yazidi minority were deprived of basic freedoms and rights. Women, children and men were regarded as property and subjected to enslavement, slave trading, sexual slavery, forced labour, deprivation of liberty and extrajudicial executions. The charged offences comprise part of the systematic abuse and offences these women and children were subjected too during their time in IS’ captivity. IS sought to destroy the Yazidi people on an industrial scale,” says Senior Prosecutor Reena Devgun leading the investigation.

The 52-year-old woman is suspected of, in complicity with other perpetrators, between 2014 and 2016,  buying or receiving civilian women and children belonging to the Yazidi minority in her residence in Raqqa in Syria. According to the indictment, she treated them as slaves. Furthermore, they were subjected to severe suffering, slavery or other inhumane treatment. In violation of international law they were deprived of liberty in the woman’s home and prevented from leaving.

“Genocide, crimes against humanity and serious war crimes can be committed by means of acts that overlap each other. However, they have different protection interests and it is therefore important that the court tries all the criminal classifications that can be relevant for the acts that I believe to have been committed in the residence,” says Reena Devgun.

The woman is suspected of,  on different occasions, being complicit  in selling or handing over women and children to other persons within IS, knowing that they could be killed or subjected to severe suffering or serious sexual assault.

“My opinion is that all the victims were subjected to such severe mental harm that it constitutes  genocide. Forcefully taking the Yazidi children from their group and, as in this case, bringing them up to be Muslims, is also an act of  genocide,” says Reena Devgun.

The woman denies all allegations. She is currently serving a sentence for gross violations of international law and serious war crimes.

What are genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes? 

Stockholm District Court Case Number: B3210-23.

Contact 

Senior Prosecutor Reena Devgun is available today 19 September at approximately 3-3.30 PM for interviews on +46 10-562 50 15.

The next time she is available to the media is after the judgment has been delivered.

Press Service, +46 10 562 50 20