A French member of Islamic State has been convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity for atrocities committed against Yazidis in a historic judgment that highlighted the atrocities committed by jihadists.
The Paris criminal court found Sabri Essid, who was tried in his absence, directly participated in an organised system of killing, raping and enslaving members of the Iraqi ethnic and religious minority who are descended from some of the region’s most ancient roots.
The case was based on harrowing evidence from two Yazidi women who were “owned” by the Toulouse-born terrorist in the IS Iraqi-Syrian declared caliphate between 2014 and 2016. Judge Marc Sommerer read chilling extracts from transcripts of conversations from a Telegram group headed “market for caliphate soldiers”. It included posts from IS members selling young children to be sexual slaves. The youngest girls fetched up to $14,000 and were considered by IS to have reached sexual maturity at the age of nine.
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