The primary spouse of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the late chief of the jihadist group Islamic State (IS), has been sentenced to demise by an Iraqi court docket, the Iraqi judiciary stated.
The Kach Prison Court docket discovered the lady responsible of “collaborating with extremist teams and detaining Yazidi ladies,” in accordance with the Supreme Judicial Council.
The Inside Ministry recognized her as Asma Mohammed, often known as Umm Hudaifa.
Her lawyer had no remark, however In a current interview with the BBC She denies any involvement in Islamic State atrocities or the kidnapping and enslavement of Yazidi ladies.
She was married to Baghdadi, who oversaw the group’s brutal rule over a lot of Iraq and neighboring Syria, a area of practically eight million folks.
In 2019, U.S. forces raided a hideout of Baghdadi and a few of his members of the family in northwestern Syria, months after the group’s army defeat within the area. Al-Baghdadi detonated his explosive vest whereas cornered in a tunnel, killing himself and his two kids, and two of his 4 wives had been additionally killed within the shootout.
Umm Hudaifa is just not there as she was detained in 2018 whereas residing underneath a false identify in southern Turkey. She was extradited to Iraq in February and remanded in custody as authorities investigated whether or not she had dedicated terrorism-related offences.
UN investigators say they’ve clear and convincing proof that Islamic State has dedicated genocide and quite a few different worldwide crimes in opposition to the Yazidi spiritual minority, and members of the minority have been given an ultimatum or Convert or die.
They discovered that hundreds of Yazidis had been killed, hundreds extra had been enslaved, and girls and youngsters had been kidnapped from their households and subjected to brutal abuse, together with serial rape and different sexual violence.
U.N. investigators additionally say IS dedicated conflict crimes, together with the 2014 bloodbath of about 1,700 unarmed cadets, principally Shia Muslim cadets, and personnel from the Camp Spike army base in Iraq, which included homicide and torture.
When requested by the BBC about such atrocities, Umm Hudaifa stated she had questioned her husband, saying he had “the blood of harmless folks” on his fingers.
She additionally stated she was “ashamed” and “deeply sorry” for the therapy of Yazidi ladies and youngsters, no less than 9 of whom had been allegedly purchased into her household as slaves.
Yazidis kidnapped and raped by members of the Islamic State have filed a civil lawsuit in Iraq accusing Umm Hudaifa of conspiring to kidnap and sexually enslave women and girls. She denies the accusations.
Lately, Iraqi courts have sentenced lots of of women and men convicted of “membership of a terrorist group” to demise sentences and life imprisonment.
Rights teams say the cost is simply too broad and obscure, and that trials are sometimes rushed and based mostly on confessions typically obtained by torture.
