Judgment in the terror trial against Jennifer W.
Munich
The verdict is expected today in the terror trial against ISIS returnees Jennifer W. The young woman from Lohne in Lower Saxony has been charged with murder and war crimes before the Munich Higher Regional Court.
As an IS supporter in Iraq, she is said to have watched while a little Yezidi girl was chained up in a courtyard and died of thirst there.
In mid-September, the federal prosecutor’s office demanded a life sentence for the indictment. She is guilty of enslavement resulting in death, membership in a terrorist organization and war crimes, among other things. Her defense calls for a maximum two-year prison sentence. The 30-year-old may only be convicted of membership in a terrorist organization.
Jennifer W. herself made allegations against the judiciary. “The often-quoted sentence” In case of doubt for the accused “did not apply in my case,” she said in her closing remarks in front of the court. Apparently an example should be set in her for all the injustice that had happened under the terrorist organization Islamic State (IS).
According to her own statement, she traveled to Iraq in 2014 to marry an IS fighter there out of ideological conviction. In the summer of 2015, according to the indictment, she witnessed in Fallujah how a girl was exposed to the blazing sun without protection and without water. As a punishment for wetting the bed, her husband is said to have tied the five-year-old to a window grille. A tormenting ordeal that, according to the prosecution, led to death – and against which W. is said to have done nothing. The charge in the indictment is murder by omission.
The woman from Lower Saxony also apologized in her last word in court and referred to her ex-husband, who is on trial in Frankfurt am Main. But she was powerless to face the man’s actions and could not simply untie the girl.
The trial of Jennifer W. made headlines in April 2019, also because an extremely prominent lawyer initially played a central role: the human rights expert and wife of actor George Clooney, Amal Clooney, who represents the co-plaintiff and mother of the girl who was killed, in court in But Munich never appeared. Before the trial, she issued a joint statement from the secondary prosecution and the Yazidi organization Yazda: “Yazidi victims have been waiting far too long for their opportunity to testify in court.”
According to Yazda, the Munich trial was the world’s first indictment of crimes by ISIS members against the Yazidis religious minority. Yazidi and Nobel Peace Prize winner Nadia Murad called the trial a great moment and an important process for all Yazidi survivors. “Every survivor I spoke to is waiting for one and the same thing: that the perpetrators will be prosecuted and brought to justice for their actions against the Yazidis, especially women and children.”
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 211025-99-723674 / 2
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