A German court on Tuesday issued the first ruling worldwide to recognise crimes against the Yazidi community as genocide, in a verdict hailed by activists as a "historic" win for the minority.

The court in Frankfurt sentenced an Iraqi man to life in jail for genocide against the Yazidis, as well as crimes against humanity resulting in death, war crimes, aiding and abetting war crimes and bodily harm resulting in death.

Taha al-Jumailly, 29, who joined the Islamic State jihadist group in 2013, passed out in the courtroom after the verdict was read out.

Yazidi survivor and 2018 Nobel Peace Prize winner Nadia Murad thanked Germany for the "historic" ruling, which she described as "a win for survivors of genocide, survivors of sexual violence, and the entire Yazidi community".

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 the outcome every single Yazidi and all genocide survivors were hoping to see," Natia Navrouzov, a lawyer and member of the NGO Yazda, which gathers evidence of crimes committed by IS against the Yazidis, told AFP.

"We will make sure that more trials such as this take place," she said.

- Torment -

Prosecutors say 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 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 as Nora B., the child's mother testified in both Munich and Frankfurt about the torment inflicted on her daughter.

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.

Nora B., who is in witness protection, told AFP in a statement through one of her lawyers Natalie von Wistinghausen that she was "relieved" by the ruling.

"It's in the crimes committed against her and her daughter that the IS ideology, including the aim of destroying the Yazidi's religion and community, is manifested," added the lawyer.

- 'Replicate around the world' -

The mother was 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 Murad.

"This is the moment Yazidis have been waiting for," Clooney said in a statement. "There is no more denying it -- ISIS (another acronym for IS) is guilty of genocide."

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 handed down five convictions against women for crimes against humanity related to the Yazidis committed in territories held by IS.

Prosecutors in Naumburg on Tuesday charged a German woman named as Leonora M. with aiding and abetting crimes against humanity after she and her IS husband enslaved a Yazidi woman in Syria in 2015.

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.

"Germany is not only raising awareness about the need for justice but is acting on it," said Murad. "Their use of universal jurisdiction in this case can and should be replicated by governments around the world."

Iraq's Yazidis, victims of genocide
Paris (AFP) Nov 30, 2021 - The Yazidis, which a German court found to be victims of genocide in a historic first on Tuesday, are a Kurdish-speaking ethno-religious minority.

Islamic State jihadists carried out a horrific massacre of the community in northwestern Iraq in August 2014, killing men en masse and abducting thousands of girls and women as sex slaves.

- An ancient faith -

Mainly living in remote corners of the north of Iraq, the Yazidis are followers of an ancient and unique religion.

Their faith emerged in Iran more than 4,000 years ago and is rooted in Zoroastrianism. Over time it has also absorbed elements of Islam and Christianity.

Organised into castes, and with no holy book, Yazidis pray to God facing the sun and worship his seven angels -- first and foremost Melek Taus, or Peacock Angel.

Their holiest site is Lalish, a serene stone complex of shrines and natural springs in Iraq's mountainous northwest where visitors must walk barefoot.

The faith is led by a five-member High Spiritual Council based in nearby Sheikhan, which includes both the worldwide "prince" of Yazidis and Baba Sheikh, their religious chief.

Yazidis discourage marriage outside of their community and even across their caste system.

Their usual beliefs and practices, such as a ban on eating lettuce and wearing the colour blue, have often been seen by other Iraqis as satanic.

Yazidis are organised into three castes -- sheikhs, pirs, and murids -- and cannot wed across them or outside the sect. Children are Yazidi only if both their parents are.

- Yazidis in numbers -

Of the world's nearly 1.5 million Yazidis, the largest number -- 550,000 -- lived in Iraq before being scattered by the IS offensive in 2014.

But since IS swept across Sinjar in 2014, around 100,000 have fled to Europe, the US, Australia and Canada.

Among the Yazidis who have found refuge in Germany are 2018 Nobel Peace Prize winner Nadia Murad who was captured, raped and forced to marry a jihadist before she was able to escape.

With the Lebanese-British lawyer Amal Clooney, Murad has been fighting for the IS to be put on trial for their crimes.

Only a few thousand Yazidis have been able to return home to Mount Sinjar.

- Long persecuted -

Their status as non-Arabs and non-Muslims has placed Yazidis among the most vulnerable minorities in the Middle East, where orthodox Muslims have often derided them as "devil-worshippers".

Yazidis say they have been subject to 74 "genocides", including the IS attack in 2014.

One of the worst, according to the High Spiritual Council, saw 250,000 Yazidis perish several hundred years ago.

They were also persecuted by the Ottoman Empire in the early 1900s and more recently by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, whose iron-fisted rule between 1979 and 2003 forced thousands of Yazidi families to flee.

The Iraqi Constitution of 2005 recognised the Yazidi right to practise their religion and gave them seats in the central and autonomous Kurdish parliaments.

- IS and its aftermath -

The Islamic State seized the Yazidi bastion Sinjar in August 2014, unleashing a brutal campaign that the United Nations has said could amount to genocide.

According to religious authorities, more than 1,280 Yazidis were killed by IS, leaving several hundred children orphaned. Nearly 70 shrines were destroyed.

Several dozen grave sites have been identified across Sinjar containing the remains of IS victims.

Some women who had been forced to bear the children of IS fighters have left them in neighbouring Syria, as they would not have been accepted by the minority.

In May, a special UN team said it had "clear and convincing proof" of a genocide.

A court in Frankfurt on Tuesday jailed an Iraqi IS member to life in prison for war crimes against the Yazidis, finding him guilty of genocide.

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