Politics

Kurdistan Region announces that first ISIS trials in Iraq to start in mid-2021

On Wednesday, Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) Coordinator for International Advocacy, Dindar Zebari, announced that the first trial of Islamic State militants in Iraq will take place in min-2021, with a national judicial team that will include judges from the Kurdistan Region, with an international judicial body that will supervise the course of investigations and trials.

Mustafa Shilani 2020/05/13 14:52

kurdistan Kurdistan KRG ISIS Iraq Ezidis Yezidis UN

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – On Wednesday, the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) Coordinator for International Advocacy, Dindar Zebari, announced that the first trial of Islamic State militants in Iraq will take place in min-2021, with a national judicial team that will include judges from the Kurdistan Region, with an international judicial body that will supervise the course of investigations and trials.

Zebari said in a statement that an Iraqi investigation team has been working with the United Nations Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Da’esh (UNITAD) to investigate the Islamic State’s crimes against humanity in Sinjar (Shingal), other parts of Nineveh province, and the site of the Spiker airbase massacre in the city of Tikrit.

“Following the ISIS attack in 2014, the KRG established several teams to investigate ISIS crimes, and follow on the minorities’ cases who felled victims to the terrorist group. So far there are 2,600 cases of kidnapped Yezidis (Ezidi), Christians, Shabak Kurds, and Turkmens. More than 3,000 cases still being investigated,” Zebari mentioned in the statement.

The UNITAD expert team currently consists of 129 individuals from 48 different countries, half of them female, and all religious, and ethnic components of Iraq and Kurdistan Region are represented.

The UN Security Council noted in September that the Islamic State “constitutes a global threat to international peace and security” and recognized “that holding those responsible accountable will further expose these crimes as being used as a tactic of terrorism.”

Zebari explained that the team had so far unearthed 16 Ezidi mass graves in Shingal's village of Kojo, exhuming 341 bodies to date. With the assistance of information supplied by local eyewitnesses and suspects in custody, the team is set to continue with the next phase of its investigation in September.

The KRG official also said that “an expert national judicial team to be established in Iraq to work and coordinate with the UN team in terms of capacity development and enable the Iraqi judiciary to handle the cases of ISIS crimes, which according to international standards are considered crimes of war, crimes against humanity, and mass murder.”

Editing by John J. Catherine