Female Islamic State returnee charged with crimes against humanity in Germany

A German woman has been charged with crimes against humanity over her alleged persecution of the Yazidi minority under Daesh (ISIS), German federal prosecutors announced yesterday.

The suspect, known only as Nurten J, is believed to be the first woman charged with crimes against humanity for her actions in Syria, Agence Franc-Presse (AFP) reported.

Nurten J, according to a statement by prosecutors, travelled to Syria with her three-year-old daughter in 2015 to the join Daesh.

She later married a German-born Daesh fighter, with whom she had more children.

While living in Syria, Nurten J was frequently visited by a friend who owned a Yazidi “slave”.

The “slave” was forced to clean and tidy Nurten J’s house.

The German suspect faces secondary charges of war crimes against property for living in a house that was forcibly seized from its rightful occupants by Daesh.

She is believed to have lived in at least five different apartments, all of whose former tenants were either killed or evicted.

Nurten J also faces charges for membership of a foreign terrorist group, violating weapons laws and for endangering her infant daughter’s life by taking her to a war zone.

The German woman and her family were captured by Kurdish forces as Daesh lost all its territory in Syria, Associated Press (AP) reported.

The family were eventually taken into deportation custody in Turkey and then sent back to Germany, where she was arrested upon her arrival in Frankfurt Airport in July this year.

It was not immediately clear what happened to the rest of her family and the fate of her children is unknown.

Germany has charged several Daesh returnees with war crimes and crimes against humanity, using the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows crimes that were committed in a foreign country to be prosecuted for elsewhere.

However, Nurten J’s case is one of only a few brought against female Daesh returnees.

Last year, a German woman was charged for war crimes in a Munich court, over allegations she allowed a young Yazidi girl to die of dehydration in 2015.

Meanwhile, last month a German-Tunisian Daesh widow was jailed in Germany for three and a half years over her membership to the group and her role in enslaving a 13-year-old Yazidi girl.

Source: MEM