The Higher Regional Court in Munich, Germany, sentenced an Iraqi couple—Tuwanah H.S. and Aziya R.A.—to life imprisonment for crimes committed as members of the Islamic State (ISIS). The pair had enslaved two Yazidi girls—a 5-year-old and a 12-year-old—during ISIS’s control of territory spanning parts of Iraq and Syria between 2015 and 2017.
Enslavement, Sexual Violence, and Systematic Abuse
According to the court’s ruling, the defendants abducted the younger girl first and later took the older one. Both children were held in conditions of slavery, subjected to repeated sexual violence, physical abuse, and psychological coercion—including forced indoctrination into ISIS ideology.
Tuwanah H.S. was found guilty of repeatedly raping both girls. His wife, Aziya R.A., allegedly prepared rooms for the assaults, applied makeup to the victims before each incident, inflicted deliberate burns on them, and enforced cruel punishments—including forcing the children to stand on one leg for hours.
Convictions for Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity
The couple was convicted, among other charges, of complicity in genocide and the enslavement of minors—crimes recognized under international law and prosecuted in Germany under its universal jurisdiction principles.
After ISIS lost territorial control in 2017, the defendants fled Syria but did not free the girls. Instead, they transferred custody of the children to other ISIS members. They were arrested in Bavaria in April 2024 and charged with genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.