BERLIN (Reuters) – A Munich court on Monday sentenced a German woman, who had allowed a young Yazidi girl to die of thirst, to 10 years in prison after finding her guilty of supporting Islamic State militants in Iraq, aiding and abetting attempted murder, attempted war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Prosecutors had accused the 30-year-old woman, identified as Jennifer W. in court documents, of joining the militant group in 2014 and integrating herself into the decision-making and command structure of the group.
The woman was accused of letting a 5-year-old enslaved Yazidi girl die of thirst after her husband, an Islamic State fighter, chained the child up in a courtyard without protection from the scorching heat as punishment for wetting her mattress, prosecutors said.
The defendant, who was arrested on her way back to Syria from Germany in 2018, was also a member of the Islamic State’s “moral police,” patrolling public parks in the Iraqi cities of Fallujah and Mosul to ensure women complied with the group’s strict rules on dress and conduct, prosecutors added.
The Federal Prosecutor’s Office had demanded a life sentence for the suspect. The defence pleaded for a maximum of two years in prison.
(Reporting by Riham Alkousaa; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
