Islamic State: Woman jailed in Germany for keeping Yazidi woman as slave

A German woman who joined the Islamic State (IS) group has been jailed for nine years for crimes including keeping a Yazidi woman as a slave.

The defendant was also found guilty of crimes against humanity and membership of a foreign terrorist organisation.

A court in the western city of Koblenz said the 37-year-old had abused the young Yazidi woman for three years while they lived in Syria and Iraq.

It also found she had encouraged her husband to rape and beat the woman.

“All of this served the declared purpose of IS, to wipe out the Yazidi faith,” said prosecutors at the start of the trial in January.

In 2014, IS fighters stormed into the ancestral homeland of the Yazidi religious minority in northern Iraq’s Sinjar region and launched what the UN has said was a genocidal campaign.

Thousands of men and boys over the age of 12 were summarily killed after being given the ultimatum to convert or die. Some 7,000 women and girls were enslaved and subjected to brutal abuses.

Read more: BBC News