The wife of slain ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is sentenced to DEATH for keeping Yazidi women as slaves at her home
- Wife of polygamous Baghdadi was detained in Turkey and returned to Iraq
An Iraqi court has sentenced the wife of slain Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to death for holding Yazidi women captive, the judiciary said on Wednesday.
According to judicial sources, Asma Mohammed, one of the wives of the polygamous Baghdadi, has been returned to Iraq after being held in Turkey.
“The Karkh Criminal Court (West Baghdad) has sentenced the wife of terrorist Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to death for the crime of collaborating with the terrorist group Daesh (IS) and holding Yazidi women captive in her home,” the High Council of Justice said on its website.
The wife of the slain leader held the Yazidis who were “later abducted” by IS fighters in the Sinjar district of northern Iraq, the report said.
Washington announced in October 2019 that US forces had killed Baghdadi during an operation in northwestern Syria, five years after he declared a “caliphate” across large parts of Syria and neighboring Iraq.
The late leader of Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is seen in an undated photo
Asma Mohammed, one of the wives of polygamous Baghdadi, has been returned to Iraq after being held in Turkey, justice sources said
During their meteoric advance across northern Iraq in 2014, Islamic extremists ISIS targeted non-Muslim Yazidis in particular, systematically killing thousands of men and forcing women into sexual slavery.
Over the years, Iraqi courts have imposed hundreds of death sentences and life sentences under the Criminal Code for membership in “a terrorist group.”
Among those convicted in Iraq were more than 500 foreign men and women found guilty of joining ISIS.
Iraq announced in February that it had secured the “repatriation of Baghdadi’s family,” with a justice source saying that Baghdadi’s wife, “detained in Turkey,” had returned with her children.
The announcement coincided with the broadcast of an interview with “Baghdadi’s wife” by the Saudi pan-Arab TV channel Al Arabiya, which named her as Asma Mohammed.
In November 2019, Turkey reported that it had arrested Baghdadi’s wife in June 2018. According to Turkish media, she was Asma Fawzi Mohammed Al-Qubaysi.
US-backed forces defeated IS in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria two years later, but remnants of the group continue to attack civilians and security personnel in both countries.