Iraqi court sentences widow of former ISIS leader al-Baghdadi to death

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - An Iraqi court on Wednesday sentenced the widow of former longtime Islamic State (ISIS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to death for enslaving kidnapped Yazidi women, state media reported. 

“The terrorist enslaved Yazidi women in her home, and they were kidnapped by ISIS terrorist gangs in Sinjar district in western Nineveh province,” state media said, citing a Supreme Judicial Council statement. 

The court ruling was issued in accordance with Article Four of the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism law of 2005, the statement said. According to the article, anyone found guilty of committing a terror offense is given a death sentence, with life imprisonment given to those who assist or hide those convicted of terrorism. 

Known as Asma Mohammed, she was arrested in Turkey in 2018 and sent back to Iraq in February. In an interview with the BBC last month, she painted herself as a “victim who tried to escape from her husband” and denied that she was involved in ISIS’s brutal activities. 

However, at least two Yazidi women had filed lawsuits against Mohammed for complicity in the kidnapping and enslavement of Yazidis. They called for the death penalty. 

“She was responsible for everything. She made the selections – this one to serve her, that one to serve her husband … and my sister was one of those girls,” Soad, a Yazidi victim who was enslaved, raped, and sold by ISIS, told BBC. 

Five years ago, longtime ISIS leader al-Baghdadi was killed in a US special forces raid in northwest Syria’s Idlib province. Baghdadi died detonating a suicide vest after being cornered in a tunnel with three of his children. 

ISIS rose to power and swept through vast swathes of Iraqi and Syrian land in 2014 but was declared devoid of territorial control in 2017 and 2019 respectively. Remnants of the jihadists continue to pose security risks in parts of northern Iraq that are disputed between the federal government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). 

In Syria, the militants continue to launch deadly attacks from the desert, which stretches from Damascus to the Iraqi border. 

Minority groups, including Yazidis, Christians, and Shabaks, suffered extensively under ISIS rule. Among the group’s crimes are “executions, torture, amputations, ethno-sectarian attacks, rape, and sexual slavery imposed on women and girls,” according to the United Nations. 

The Yazidis were subjected to countless atrocities including sexual slavery, forced marriages, and genocide when ISIS took over their heartland of Sinjar (Shingal) in Nineveh province in 2014, as many of their villages of towns were razed and thousands were forced to flee to displacement camps across the Kurdistan Region and Iraq. 

More than 6,000 Yazidis were abducted by ISIS, and around 2,700 remain missing. 

The majority of captives are held in northeast Syria’s (Rojava) notorious al-Hol camp, according to KRG officials. The camp is infamously branded a breeding ground for terrorism, a “ticking time bomb,” and a facility where ISIS sleeper cells maintain very strong influence and frequently carry out killings.