Iraqi court sentences ISIS militant to death for sexually assaulting Yezidi girl

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Iraqi Criminal Court in Baghdad’s Karkh district on Monday sentenced a convicted Islamic State terrorist, who used the alias, Abu-Hamam, to death for raping a Yezidi (Ezidi) girl, when the terrorist group took control over most of Nineveh province.

The court, however, provided no further details about Abu Hamam: his real name, nationality, or age. But the overwhelming majority of the members of the terrorist group are Iraqi or Syrian.

“The Ezidi accuser was given to the terrorist by the so-called Islamic State as a reward and spoil of war for his injury, while fighting the Iraqi Security Forces,” a statement from Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council media center explained on Monday.

The center added that the court had sentenced him to “death by hanging,” in accordance with the provisions of Article 4/2 of the Anti-Terrorism Law No. 13 of 2005, which was issued in the early days of the US-led war in Iraq that toppled Saddam Hussein.

The emergence of the Islamic State and its assault on Shingal in 2014 led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Ezidis. Most fled to the Kurdistan Region, while others settled in neighboring countries in the region or moved to Western states.

Many, however, remained stranded in the war zone, where they endured atrocities, including mass executions, at the hands of the terrorist group. The so-called Islamic State subjected women and girls to sexual slavery; kidnapped children; forced religious conversions; executed scores of men; and abused, sold, and trafficked females across the areas that they controlled in Iraq and Syria.

Prior to the 2014 assault, there were roughly 550,000 Ezidis in the Kurdistan Region and Iraq. As the terrorist group took over large swaths of territory in Nineveh Province, 360,000 Ezidis managed to escape and find refuge elsewhere, according to the Ezidi Rescue Office.

Editing by Laurie Mylroie