ISIS Bride Sentenced to Prison for Crimes Against Humanity

(ConservativeHub.com) – In 2014, Islamic State (ISIS) members took control of portions of northern Iraq and neighboring Syria, home to the Yazidis, a Kurdish-speaking minority group. On Monday, October 25, a German court convicted the wife of an ISIS member of crimes against humanity for her role in the 2015 death of a young Yazidi girl.

The Munich-based court sentenced 30-year-old Jennifer Wenisch to 10 years in prison for failing to come to the child’s aid. Prosecutors had asked for a life sentence, but the court concluded she had a limited ability to save the girl’s life under the circumstances.

German-born Jennifer Wenisch, 30, was charged in a Munich court with crimes against humanity after refusing to help a 5-year-old her husband left to die in the scorching heat.

Wenisch, a convert to Islam, cooperated with her husband.https://t.co/SgAgQ4gP3W

— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) October 25, 2021

According to prosecutors, Wenisch’s husband, Taha al-Jumailly, “purchased” the girl and her mother to serve as household “slaves” while living in Fallujah, an Iraqi city about an hour west of Baghdad on the Euphrates River. Al-Jumailly chained the girl outside and left her to die in the searing Iraqi desert heat as punishment after she became ill and wet her bed. Al-Jumailly forced the girl’s mother to witness her cruel death. The unnamed woman testified against Wenisch for 11 days during their trial.

Court watchers believe the trial is one of the only prosecutions worldwide for a war crime committed against a member of the Yazidi community. International authorities estimate that about 10,000 Yazidis died in northern Iraq and Syria due to war crimes and mass atrocities. Additionally, The Washington Post reported that ISIS members enslaved roughly 7,000 Yazidi women and children.

Al-Jumailly is currently on trial in Frankfurt, Germany, under a legal principle called “universal jurisdiction.” Germany considers some crimes so horrendous that normal territorial boundaries don’t apply with regard to prosecutions.