A German woman was sentenced to ten years in prison as a ‘bride of ISIS’ and let a five-year-old girl from the Yazidi minority in Iraq die of thirst. The woman, now back in Germany and identified only as Jennifer W., was found guilty by the Munich court of belonging to a terrorist group abroad, helping and complicity in attempted murder, attempted war crime and crimes against humanity. Her husband’s trial is pending. He was 27 years old during the capture.
The alleged supporter of the terrorist organization Islamic State (IS) is said to have chained the five-year-old girl in the blazing sun and great heat in the courtyard of his house in Fallujah in 2015. The child is said to have died of thirst.
The thirty-year-old, originally from Lower Saxony, had left for Iraq after joining the Islamic State. According to the federal prosecutor, she did not intervene when her jihadist husband chained a Yazidi girl in a courtyard in Iraq, leaving her to die of thirst. The prosecution had asked for a life sentence, while the defense had supported a maximum of two years for belonging to the Islamic State.
The alleged IS member was captured in Greece in May 2019 and transferred to Germany in October. For a long time, it was unclear whether and when the 27-year-old would testify in Munich. After his approximately five-minute appearance in 2019, the presiding judge scheduled further trial days for March and April 2020. The trial was originally supposed to end by November 2019.
Jennifer W. and the man, who are said to have been married to each other at least once according to Islamic law, have a child as admitted by the accused.