World News | Iraqi Couple Charged in Germany with Keeping, Abusing Yazidi Girls as Slaves
Get latest articles and stories on World at LatestLY. Germany's federal prosecutor on Monday charged an Iraqi couple with enslavement, torture and war crimes, alleging they kept two young Yazidi girls as slaves and sexually and physically abused them.
Berlin, Dec 30 (AP) Germany's federal prosecutor on Monday charged an Iraqi couple with enslavement, torture and war crimes, alleging they kept two young Yazidi girls as slaves and sexually and physically abused them.
The man and the woman, identified only as Twana H.S. and Asia R.A. in line with German privacy rules, were arrested in Bavaria in April.
They were members of the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria between October 2015 and December 2017, the prosecutor said in a statement. They allegedly kept a 5-year-old Yazidi girl as a slave starting in late 2015, and a 12-year-old from October 2017.
Prosecutors alleged that the man raped both girls repeatedly and that the woman prepared the room and put makeup on one of the girls.
The couple also exerted “harsh physical violence” on the girls, who were prevented from practising their own religion and coerced into household work and childcare, prosecutors said.
The man on one occasion allegedly hit the older girl with a broomstick, the woman is accused of scalding the younger girl's hand with hot water and both children were repeatedly forced to stand on one leg for half an hour as punishment.
Before they left Syria in November 2017, the suspects handed the girls over to other members of IS, the prosecutor's statement said.
“All of this served the organisation's objective to destroy the Yazidi religion,” the statement said. (AP)
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)