German court jails IS woman who allowed Yazidi girl to die of thirst in Iraq

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German Court Jails Is Woman Who Allowed Yazidi Girl To Die Of Thirst In Iraq
Defendant Jennifer W arrives in a courtroom for her trial in Munich, Germany
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By Associated Press Reporter

A German convert to Islam has been sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges that, as a member of the so-called Islamic State group in Iraq, she allowed a five-year-old Yazidi girl she and her husband kept as a slave to die of thirst in the hot sun.

The Higher Regional Court in Munich convicted the 30-year-old, identified only as Jennifer W in line with privacy rules, of – among other things – membership of a terrorist organisation abroad, aiding and abetting attempted murder, attempted war crimes and crimes against humanity, German news agency dpa reported.

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Federal prosecutors had accused the woman, from Lohne in Lower Saxony, of standing by in Iraq as her then-husband chained the young Yazidi girl in a courtyard and left her to die of thirst.

The child was “defenceless and helplessly exposed to the situation”, Judge Joachim Baier said, adding that W “had to reckon from the beginning that the child, who was tied up in the heat of the sun, was in danger of dying”.


Defendant Jennifer W arrives in a courtroom for her trial in Munich, Germany
Defendant Jennifer W in a courtroom for her trial in Munich, Germany (Sven Hoppe/dpa via AP)

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However, she had done nothing to help the girl – although this had been “possible and reasonable” for her, Judge Baier said, according to dpa.

W grew up as a Protestant but converted to Islam in 2013.

German media reported that she made her way to Iraq through Turkey and Syria in 2014 to join IS.

In 2015, as a member of the extremist group’s “morality police”, she patrolled parks in Fallujah and Mosul, armed with an assault rifle and a pistol as well as an explosive vest and looking for women who did not conform with its strict codes of behaviour and dress, prosecutors said.

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She was taken into custody while trying to renew her identity papers at the German embassy in Ankara in 2016, and was deported back to Germany.

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