Sammy Djedou, a former fighter with the Islamic State (IS) group, was reported by the Pentagon to have been killed in a 2016 airstrike in Raqqa, Syria.

Belgian authorities never received formal confirmation of his death, and opted to prosecute him in absentia, in the country's first trial related to mass crimes against the Yazidis.

Previously convicted in absentia on Belgian terrorism charges, Djedou faces charges of "genocide" for his alleged role from 2014 onwards in an IS campaign to exterminate the minority group.

He also stands accused of "crimes against humanity" for the suspected rape and sexual enslavement of Yazidi women.

Three Yazidi victims have been identified, two of whom were minors at the time of the crimes allegedly committed between November 2014 and December 2016.

Two are plaintiffs in the case and all three are expected to testify about their ordeal before the Brussels criminal court, with the trial expected to last a week.

The Belgian counter-terrorism investigation relies heavily on evidence gathered by journalists and NGOs operating in war zones following the fall of IS's last stronghold in Baghouz, Syria, in 2019.

- Mass persecution -

Born in Brussels in August 1989 to a Belgian mother and Ivorian father, Djedou converted to Islam at age 15 and left for Syria in October 2012 to join IS, according to the investigation.

He is later believed to have become a senior figure in the group's external operations unit, tasked with planning attacks in Europe.

In 2021, he was sentenced in Belgium to 13 years in prison for leading a terrorist group.

He was also targeted in a 2022 trial into support networks behind the November 13, 2015 attacks in Paris that claimed 130 lives. He was convicted in that case but received no prison sentence.

The Yazidis, a Kurdish-speaking minority practising a pre-Islamic faith, were primarily settled in northern Iraq before suffering mass persecution by IS beginning in August 2014.

Thousands fled as the jihadists launched brutal attacks in a campaign that UN investigators have qualified as genocide.

According to the United Nations, thousands of Yazidi women and girls were subjected to rape, abduction, and inhumane treatment including slavery.

Prosecutors in the Djedou case argue that IS "institutionalised the sexual enslavement of Yazidi women," turning it into a form of trade that became a significant part of the group's economy.