Ex-wife of IS emir indicted in France for crimes towards humanity | EUROtoday

Published on : 04/28/2024 – 10:36

4 minutes

Sonia M., a returnee from Syria and former spouse of an emir of the Islamic State group, was indicted in France on March 14 for crimes towards humanity and genocide, suspected of getting diminished a Yazidi teenager into slavery in Syria. .

The civil celebration, now aged 25, was 16 when she was purchased by Abdelnasser Benyoucef, alias Abou Moutana, head of IS exterior operations.

This man, at the moment the topic of an arrest warrant in accordance with a supply near the investigation, was additionally convicted in his absence in France for the aborted assault in Villejuif in 2015.

According to components of the investigation, revealed on Saturday April 28 by Le Parisien and of which AFP was conscious, the Yazidi denounced a each day newspaper of mistreatment.

During a listening to final February, she claimed to have been held captive for greater than a month in spring 2015 in Syria. She says that she couldn’t drink, eat or bathe with out Sonia M's authorization. She accuses the latter of getting assaulted her twice and of getting been conscious that her husband was raping her.

Kidnapped in August 2014 in Iraq

Questioned on March 14 by an anti-terrorism investigating decide, Sonia M. denied having dedicated any abuse and denounced “a single rape” of her former husband. The teenager “left her room freely, ate what she wanted, went to the toilet when she needed,” she mentioned in her interrogation, which AFP was knowledgeable of. Sonia M. additionally assured that she was not carrying a pistol, because the younger Yazidi claims.

Kidnapped in August 2014 in Iraq, {the teenager} was offered to a number of jihadist households.

Sonia M. claimed that her husband had not “asked her opinion”. “He told me that it was going to be, I don't like this word, his slave, that it was a right that had been granted to him and that I had no right to contradict him, that it was a divine order. She said she did not like giving orders and did the cleaning herself when her husband was away.

The investigating judge, who initially indicted her as an accomplice, finally indicted her as the perpetrator for acts spanning from September 2014 to March 2019.

These new prosecutions are “opportunistic accusations”, indignant Sonia M.’s lawyer, M.^e Nabil Boudi. “We want to make him responsible for the most serious crimes because justice has failed to apprehend the real perpetrators.”

“Shattered by these accusations”, Sonia M. is a “convinced repentant”, her counsel further assured, as “evidenced by all her testimonies in various terrorist trials”. “I am convinced that justice will ultimately exonerate him.”

If the investigating magistrate orders a trial at the assizes for Sonia M., this hearing will be “the primary trial of a ghost for crimes towards humanity”, notes M.^e Romain Ruiz, lawyer for the young Yazidi woman.

The debates “will check France's capability to evaluate battle crimes dedicated in Syria”, said the lawyer.

Identify French authors belonging to IS

French justice is giving itself the means to investigate the fate of minorities under the Islamic State.

At the end of 2016, a so-called “structural” preliminary investigation was opened for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Iraq and Syria since 2012 “to the detriment of ethnic and non secular minorities”, the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor's Office defined on Saturday ( Pnat) to AFP.

These investigations focus specifically on crimes suffered by “members of the Yazidi community and the Christian community” and “members of the Sheitat tribe”.

“The objective is to document these crimes and identify the French perpetrators belonging to the Islamic State organization,” added the general public prosecutor.

Three investigation providers are collectively concerned: the General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI), the Central Office for the Suppression of Violence towards Persons (OCRVP) and the Anti-Terrorism Sub-Directorate (SDAT).

According to the Pnat, 4 judicial investigations, concentrating on the actions of French jihadists for terrorism but in addition worldwide crimes, are at the moment underway in Paris.

With AFP