IS member convicted of genocide over systematic killing campaign against Yazidis

With a file folder in front of his face, the terrorist Taha Al-Jumailly takes his seat. He was convicted of genocide against the Yazidi people by a court in Germany. Photo / AP

A former Islamic State militant was convicted of genocide against the Yazidi people by a court in Germany on Tuesday.

Taha al-Jumailly was sentenced to life in prison for crimes including the murder of a Yazidi child he chained in the sun to die of thirst.

The 29-year-old Iraqi national is the first person to be convicted of genocide anywhere in the world over IS' systematic killing campaign against the Yazidis.

The court in Frankfurt heard how he kept a 5-year-old Yazidi girl as a slave and chained her outside in temperatures of over 50C as punishment for wetting the bed.

The judge ruled that the enslavement and killing of the girl amounted to genocide as part of a systematic campaign by IS to wipe out the Yazidi faith.

'This is the moment Yazidis have been waiting for'

"This is the moment Yazidis have been waiting for," said Amal Clooney, the human rights lawyer, who represented the murdered child's mother.

"To finally hear a judge, after seven years, declare that what they suffered was genocide. To watch a man face justice for killing a Yazidi girl because she was Yazidi. There is no more denying it. IS is guilty of genocide."

Nadia Murad, a survivor of the genocide and Nobel laureate, said: "This verdict is a win for survivors of genocide, survivors of sexual violence, and the entire Yazidi community."

She added: "Thank you to Germany for today's historic conviction."

With a file folder in front of his face, the Iraqi Taha Al-Juamailly talks to his lawyers Serkan Alkan and Martin Heising on the morning before the sentencing. Photo / AP

Al-Jumailly was extradited to Germany after being held as a migrant in Greece. He was tried by a German court under the principle of universal jurisdiction, which holds that war crimes and crimes against humanity can be prosecuted anywhere in the world regardless of where they were committed.

His former wife, a German IS volunteer, was convicted of crimes against humanity and sentenced to 10 years in prison last month as an accessory to the killing of the child.

The court heard how al-Jumailly joined IS in 2013, a year before the group began a genocidal campaign against the Yazidis when it captured their homeland near the Sinjar mountains.

Thousands of Yazidi men were murdered and buried in mass graves, while boys were sent to be "re-educated" as IS fighters.

Yazidi women and girls were sold into slavery where they were sold from one man to another and subjected to systematic rape, beatings and torture.

The defence argued that al-Jumailly bought the 5-year-old girl and her mother as household slaves to do domestic work, and not for sex.

But the court ruled that by buying them he had taken part in a slave trade that had subjected the girl's mother, named only as Nora T, to repeated rape by previous owners.

Jennifer W. arrives in a courtroom for her trial in Munich, Germany. The woman from Lohne in Lower Saxony is charged with murder and war crimes. Photo / AP

The court heard how al-Jumailly humiliated and mistreated Nora T and her daughter on several occasions.

On the day of the child's death, he chained her outside his home in the Iraqi city of Fallujah in temperatures of over 50C as a punishment for wetting the bed.

His wife, Jennifer Wenisch, threatened to shoot the girl's mother when she begged for her to be released.

Al-Juamailly did not unchain the girl until she had passed out. The couple then took her to hospital but Nora T never saw her daughter again.

The court ruled that he had killed the girl because she was Yazidi and he intended to wipe the Yazidi people out.

Al-Juamailly did not testify in his own defence and made no comment to the court. As the verdict against him was read out he appeared to faint and the hearing had to be temporarily suspended.