BERLIN, Nov 30, 2021 (BSS/AFP) - A Frankfurt court will decide Tuesday
whether an Iraqi man who joined the Islamic State group is guilty of genocide
against the Yazidi minority, in what could be the first verdict worldwide to
use the label.

  Taha Al-Jumailly, 29, who allegedly joined IS in 2013, faces life in prison
if found guilty of genocide as well as crimes against humanity, war crimes
and human trafficking.

  The Yazidis, a Kurdish-speaking group hailing from northern Iraq, have for
years been persecuted by IS militants who have killed hundreds of men, raped
women and forcibly recruited children as fighters.

  In May, UN special investigators reported that they had collected "clear
and convincing evidence" of genocide by IS against the Yazidis.

  "This is a historical moment for the Yazidi community," Natia Navrouzov, a
lawyer and member of the NGO Yazda, which gathers evidence of crimes
committed by IS against the Yazidis, told AFP.

  "It is the first time in Yazidi history that a perpetrator stands in a
court of law for genocide charges," she said.

  Prosecutors say Al-Jumailly and his now ex-wife, a German woman named
Jennifer Wenisch, "purchased" a Yazidi woman and child as household "slaves"
while living in then IS-occupied Mosul in 2015.

  They later moved to Fallujah, where Al-Jumailly is accused of chaining the
five-year-old girl to a window outdoors in heat rising to 50 degrees Celsius
(122 Fahrenheit) as a punishment for wetting her mattress, leading her to die
of thirst.

  In a separate trial, Wenisch, 30, was sentenced to 10 years in jail in
October for "crimes against humanity in the form of enslavement" and aiding
and abetting the girl's killing by failing to offer help.

  Identified only by her first name Nora, the child's mother has repeatedly
testified in both Munich and Frankfurt about the torment visited on her
child.

  She also described being raped multiple times by IS jihadists after they
invaded her village in the Sinjar mountains in northwestern Iraq in August
2014.

  - 'Clear message' -

  The mother is represented by a team including London-based human rights
lawyer Amal Clooney, who has been at the forefront of a campaign for IS
crimes against the Yazidis to be recognised as genocide, along with former
Yazidi slave and 2018 Nobel Peace Prize winner Nadia Murad.

  Although Clooney did not travel to Munich or Frankfurt, she called
Wenisch's conviction "a victory for everyone who believes in justice," adding
that she hopes to see "a more concerted global effort to bring ISIS (another
acronym for IS) to justice".

  Murad has called on the UN Security Council to refer cases involving crimes
against the Yazidis to the International Criminal Court or to create a
specific tribunal for genocide committed against the community.

  Germany, home to a large Yazidi community, is one of the few countries to
have taken legal action over such abuses.

  German courts have already convicted five women for crimes against humanity
related to the Yazidis committed in territories held by IS.

  Germany has charged several German and foreign nationals with war crimes
and crimes against humanity carried out abroad, using the legal principle of
universal jurisdiction which allows offences to be prosecuted even if they
were committed in a foreign country.

  The trial of Al-Jumailly "sends a clear message", according to Navrouzov:
"It doesn't matter where the crimes were committed and it doesn't matter
where the perpetrators are, thanks to the universal jurisdiction, they can't
hide and will still be put on trial."