Germany convicts an Iraqi couple of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes against two Yazidi girls, as members of Islamic State
On 13 July 2026, the Munich Higher Regional Court (Oberlandesgericht) convicted an Iraqi couple, Twana H.S. and Asia R.A., of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and aggravated sexual abuse of minors against two Yazidi girls, as well as membership of Islamic State (IS). The court sentenced the man to life imprisonment and the woman to nine and a half years’ youth detention; at the time the alleged offences were committed, she had not yet reached the age of criminal responsibility. The case is the latest in a decade of German convictions under the principle of universal jurisdiction and reinforces Germany’s role as a judicial benchmark for crimes committed in Syria and Iraq.
According to the court, both — who were members of IS between October 2015 and December 2017 — purchased two Yazidi girls as slaves: a five-year-old at a bazaar in Mosul in 2015, acquired at the woman’s instigation, and a twelve-year-old in 2017. They held them captive, forced them to carry out domestic and care work, prevented them from practising their religion, and subjected them to systematic beatings and abuse. The man repeatedly sexually assaulted the girls; according to the facts established by the prosecution, he had the active collaboration of his wife, who on at least one occasion scalded the younger girl’s hand with hot water and prepared the other girl for sexual assault.
The victims’ testimony and evidence of genocide
The trial, which began in May 2025 and lasted for over a year, placed central emphasis on the direct testimony of the eldest of the victims, who appeared as a private prosecutor (Nebenklägerin) and recounted to the court the years of slavery, torture and sexual violence she had endured. The presiding judge particularly highlighted the courage of this and other Yazidi witnesses, some of whom had travelled from other continents to give evidence. The second girl, purchased by the couple in 2017, remains missing.
In its reasoning regarding the crime of genocide, the court emphasised a key legal principle: murder is not a necessary element for the offence to be established, as it can also be committed through the forcible transfer of a child from one group to another. This reasoning broadens the understanding of genocide beyond direct physical destruction, and explicitly incorporates slavery and the appropriation of minors as a mechanism for the destruction of a religious group.
The Yazidi genocide and the role of sexual violence
These events form part of the campaign waged by IS from August 2014 against the Yazidi community — a Kurdish-speaking minority with its own religion, rooted in Zoroastrianism and Mesopotamian traditions, whose holy city is Lalish, in the Iraqi province of Nineveh — which the jihadist group considered ‘heretical’. Thousands of women and girls were abducted, sold in slave markets and subjected to sexual violence as part of a deliberate strategy to destroy the group; thousands of men were murdered. Germany officially recognised these events as genocide in 2023.
Sexual violence against girls featured centrally in the Munich judgement, in line with a principle that German case law has been consolidating since the world’s first trial for Yazidi genocide in 2021: sexual violence is not collateral damage of the conflict, but a means of committing genocide in its own right, sufficient in itself to give rise to individual criminal liability —both for those who perpetrate it directly and for those who facilitate or conceal it, as was found to be the case with regard to Asia R.A.
A judicial pattern: ten Yazidi cases and a body of case law under development
The Munich case is not an isolated one. A dozen trials have taken place in Germany for crimes against the Yazidi community, in a series that began with the conviction of Taha al-J., the first former IS member convicted of genocide, for allowing a five-year-old Yazidi girl whom he was holding in slavery to die of thirst. That trial was also the first universal jurisdiction case against a defendant with no connection whatsoever to Germany — neither he nor the victim were German, and the crime was not committed on German soil — who was extradited solely on the basis of an international arrest warrant.
This accumulation of cases has enabled German courts to refine standards of evidence and victim protection in crimes with a strong gender component, an area in which international case law has lagged behind that relating to other crimes under international law.
The German legal framework: a reform designed with victims in mind
These advances are underpinned by a specific legal framework. Since 2002, the International Criminal Code (Völkerstrafgesetzbuch, VStGB) has empowered the German Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office to investigate genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed anywhere in the world, without requiring a link to German nationality.
In June 2024, the German Parliament approved a reform of this framework – the Act on the Development of International Criminal Law, which came into force in August of that year – which specifically expanded the judicial response to sexual and gender-based violence, guaranteeing for the first time the active participation of victims in the proceedings and their access to free legal aid and psychosocial support during the trial. The conviction of the couple in Munich is one of the first instances in which this strengthened framework has been fully applied to a case involving underage victims, with sexual violence at the heart of the charges.
Germany: a benchmark for crimes committed in Syria
The Yazidi case forms part of a wider trend: Germany has become the country with the most judicial activity under universal jurisdiction for crimes committed in the Syrian conflict. Previous cases have already established a well-consolidated body of case law: the conviction of Anwar Raslan, a former Syrian intelligence colonel, for running a system of torture and enforced disappearances; and the sentencing of the Syrian doctor Alaa Mousa to life imprisonment for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Syrian military hospitals – the first case in which the 2024 reform was applied with the active participation of survivor-victims.
This role has become even more significant following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December 2024: despite the change of government in Damascus, Germany — together with France and the Netherlands — continues to investigate and prosecute in its courts those allegedly responsible for crimes committed during the more than five decades of the Assad family’s rule, in coordination with the United Nations International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism for Syria (IIIM) and Eurojust.
A precedent that goes beyond the individual case
Eleven years on from the start of the genocide against the Yazidi people, convictions such as the one in Munich uphold a necessary principle: the certainty that the passage of time, the geographical dispersion of victims and perpetrators, and the disappearance of the structures that made the crime possible are not insurmountable obstacles to justice.
Every new judgement under universal jurisdiction also sends a message to other contexts of impunity, including Syria: that the lack of will or capacity on the part of the states where the crimes took place does not necessarily mean they will be forgotten forever, and that the patient development of case law, evidence and victim protection — such as that which Germany has been building for over a decade — is, in itself, a form of redress.
By Federica Carnevale, project manager at FIBGAR.
REFERENCES
Europa Press (DPA). Iraqi couple convicted in Germany for enslaving Yazidi girls and belonging to Islamic State, 13 July 2026. Available at: https://www.europapress.es/internacional/noticia-condenada-alemania-pareja-iraqui-esclavizar-ninas-yazidies-pertenecer-estado-islamico-20260713105022.html
SWI swissinfo.ch (EFE). Life imprisonment in Germany for an Iraqi man for enslaving and raping two Yazidi girls, 13 July 2026. Available at: https://www.swissinfo.ch/spa/cadena-perpetua-en-alemania-para-un-iraqu%C3%AD-por-esclavizar-y-violar-a-dos-ni%C3%B1as-yazid%C3%ADes/91739472
BBC News. German court convicts Iraqi couple of enslaving Yazidi girls, 13 July 2026. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg53rp4e2j4o
DW (Deutsche Welle). Germany sentences Iraqi man for enslaving Yazidi girls, 13 July 2026. Available at: https://www.dw.com/es/c%C3%B3mprala-a%C3%BAn-no-la-han-violado-alemania-dicta-cadena-perpetua-por-esclavizar-a-ni%C3%B1as-yazid%C3%ADes/a-77932870
Yazda. Update on the trial of Asia R.A. and Twana S. in Germany (Munich), 2026. Available at: https://www.yazda.org/update-in-the-trial-against-asia-r-a-and-twana-s-in-germany-munich
Amnesty International. Germany/Iraq: World’s first verdict on the crime of genocide against the Yazidi community, 30 November 2021. Available at: https://www.amnesty.org/es/latest/news/2021/11/germany-iraq-worlds-first-judgment-on-crime-of-genocide-against-the-yazidis/
FIBGAR. Germany strengthens its legal framework for universal jurisdiction and consolidates its role as a leader in international criminal justice, 13 August 2025. Available at: https://fibgar.es/alemania-refuerza-su-marco-legal-para-la-jurisdiccion-universal-y-consolida-su-rol-como-referente-en-justicia-penal-internacional/
