A Swedish court has handed down a 12-year prison sentence to a woman on genocide charges – marking the country’s inaugural legal case regarding the Islamic State’s persecution of Yazidis. Lina Ishaq has been found guilty of crimes against humanity and war crimes for her role in enslaving Yazidi women and children at her residence in Syria during 2015, as announced by Stockholm’s district court in a statement released on Tuesday. The 52-year-old, a Swedish citizen, already serving a six-year sentence since 2022 for permitting her 12-year-old son’s recruitment as an IS child soldier. Prosecutor Reena Devgun, who had sought a life sentence, expressed satisfaction with the convictions but hinted at a possible appeal against the imprisonment term. “These are very grave crimes, and in comparison to other Swedish legal precedents or sentencing customs, I do believe that a more severe punishment could be warranted,” she relayed to the news agency AFP.
The court’s ruling pertained to nine Yazidis, including six children at the time, who were captured by IS during the assaults on Kurdish-speaking Yazidi settlements commencing in August 2014 in Sinjar, Iraq. Following about five months of captivity, they were brought to Ishaq’s dwelling in Raqqa, Syria. Describing the victims as “imprisoned and enslaved,” the court noted that the woman subjected them to constraints on movement, compelled them to perform chores, and some were readied for transfer as slaves through photography. “By participating in the onward transfer of the victims, she facilitated their ongoing captivity and enslavement,” the court statement emphasized. Moreover, Ishaq coerced the Yazidis, adherents of their distinct faith, into embracing Islam by requiring them to recite Quranic verses and engage in multiple daily prayers. Derogatory terms such as “infidels” or “slaves” were reportedly used by Ishaq to refer to the victims, the statement added.
Highlighting the “comprehensive system of enslavement” as a critical facet implemented by IS in the commission of genocide, crimes against humanity, and severe war crimes against the Yazidi population, the court underscored that the woman shared the extremist group’s intent to obliterate a religious community. Representing Ishaq, Mikael Westerlund mentioned that the decision on an appeal had not been finalized, while appreciating the court’s avoidance of a life sentence as sought by the prosecution.
Statistics from Sapo, the Swedish intelligence service, revealed that around 300 Swedes or Swedish residents, with a quarter of them being women, joined IS in Syria and Iraq mainly in 2013 and 2014. Ishaq, originally from a Christian Iraqi family in Sweden, converted to Islam after marrying the late Islamist Jiro Mehho in the 1990s, with whom she had six children. She ventured
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