The German ISIS bride, who chained the five-year-old Yazidi slave girl in the sun and left her to die of thirst, then held a gun to the child’s mother’s head to make her cry, is sentenced to 14 years in prison
- Jennifer Wenisch let the five-year-old die of thirst as she lay chained in the sun
- She and her husband bought the Yazidi girl and her mother as house slaves
A German woman who joined the Islamic State and chained a five-year-old Yazidi slave and left her to die of thirst in the scorching sun has been sentenced to 14 years in prison by a court in Munich.
Originally from Lohne in Lower Saxony, Jennifer Wenisch joined ISIS in Iraq in August 2015 and left the young girl to die of thirst because she wet the bed.
She and her then-husband, an ISIS fighter, had bought the young Yazidi girl and her mother as domestic slaves and then proceeded to commit horrific abuses.
The woman argued in court that her husband had restrained the girl and left her to die, but the judges ruled that she was equally responsible for the girl’s fate.
Prosecutors also pointed out that Wenisch later put a gun to the slave girl’s head and threatened to shoot her in an attempt to prevent her from crying over her daughter’s horrific fate.
The Munich Higher Regional Court this morning charged 32-year-old Wenisch with slavery resulting in death, accusing her of “acting out of contempt for fellow human beings.”
Defendant Jennifer Wenisch arrives in a courtroom for her trial in Munich, October 25, 2021
Jennifer Wenisch, originally from Lohne in Lower Saxony, joined ISIS in Iraq and left the young girl to die of thirst after being chained in the sun
The conviction comes after Germany’s Federal Court of Justice rejected an appeal by Wenisch, who was initially convicted in October 2021.f two counts of crimes against humanity through slavery, in one case involving death, complicity in attempted murder and membership in a terrorist organization abroad.
Wenisch was taken into custody at the German embassy in Ankara in 2016 when she tried to renew her identity papers, and deported to Germany.
Her former husband, an Iraqi national identified only as Taha Al-J., was convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and bodily harm resulting in death by a court in Frankfurt in November 2021.
He was sentenced to life imprisonment.
The girl’s mother, who survived captivity, testified at both trials.
Following her conversion to Islam, Wenisch was recruited by the terrorist organization into the group’s self-proclaimed hisbah morality police in mid-2015.
She patrolled city parks in IS-occupied Fallujah and Mosul armed with an AK-47 assault rifle, a handgun and an explosive vest.
She was instructed by the group to enforce strict IS rules on dress codes, public behavior, and a ban on alcohol and tobacco.
German ISIS member originally jailed for 10 years in 2021 for her involvement in the death of a five-year-old Jezidi slave girl
German law allows for life imprisonment in cases where a suspect’s actions result in the death of a person
The first trial against Wenisch began in April 2019 and is one of the first examples of legal proceedings over the brutal treatment of Yazidis by the Islamic State group.
The Yazidis, a Kurdish-speaking group originating from northern Iraq, were specifically targeted and suppressed by the jihadists from 2015 onwards.
London-based human rights lawyer Amal Clooney – who was involved in a campaign to recognize ISIS crimes against the Yazidi community as ‘genocide’ – was part of the team representing the Yazidi girl’s mother.
Germany has charged several German and foreign nationals with war crimes and crimes against humanity committed abroad, making use of the legal principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows crimes to be prosecuted even if committed abroad.