Germany updates: Extra border checks unsustainable — police – DW – 05/19/2025
Skip next section Iraqi couple to face trial in Germany over alleged IS crimes against Yazidi girls
05/19/2025
May 19, 2025 Iraqi couple to face trial in Germany over alleged IS crimes against Yazidi girls
An Iraqi man and his wife, both accused of being so-called "Islamic State" (IS) militant group members and enslaving two Yazidi girls, are set to appear in court in Germany.
The 43-year-old man and 29-year-old woman face charges at the Munich Higher Regional Court, including genocide, human trafficking, and crimes against humanity.
Prosecutors say that in 2015, the man bought a 5-year-old Yazidi girl as a dowry for his wife, at her request. The child was allegedly held captive by the couple in Iraq and Syria for over two years, during which she was subjected to forced labour, sexual abuse, humiliation, and torture.
In October 2017, the couple allegedly bought a second Yazidi girl, aged 12, who endured similar abuse.
Both girls were later transferred to other IS members in November 2017. While the older girl was eventually freed after a ransom was paid, the fate of the younger child remains unknown.
The couple were arrested in Bavaria in April 2024 and have been in custody since.
IS aimed to establish a theocratic state under Sharia law during the conflicts in Syria and Iraq.
German prosecutors argue the couple's actions were part of IS's systematic rape of Yazidi women and girls — a strategy designed to dismantle the group's continuity and identity.
Germany has emerged as a key prosecutor of IS war crimes that took place in Iraq and Syria under the principle of universal jurisdiction.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
DW
a day ago
- DW
The world is full of unexploded bombs – DW – 06/04/2025
Three bombs dating back to World War II were defused in Cologne this week. Evacuations to allow ordnance disposal experts to defuse bombs are a frequent occurrence in Germany, as well as all over the world. Fifteen couples had been looking forward to the special moment when they would say "I do" for weeks. But their weddings at Cologne's historic town hall on June 4 were cancelled, since the building was right in the middle of an evacuation zone. But they were still able to get married, in a district town hall instead. Three bombs left over from World War II were responsible for the massive evacuation, the biggest since 1945. They were found during preparations for construction work on the city's Deutz Bridge. The US-made bombs — one 100-pound (45-kilogram) and two 200-pound bombs — both had impact fuses and could not be moved for safety reasons. They had to be defused on site, and thus it was necessary to evacuate several districts of the city in North Rhine-Westphalia, in western Germany. Thousands evacuated Around 20,500 people had to leave their homes on Wednesday. Hospitals and retirement homes were evacuated, with people being moved to other facilities. Almost 60 hotels shut down, with guests being accommodated elsewhere. Bomb disposal is a mammoth logistical task, but Germany is very familiar with it. More than 1,600 bombs were defused last year in North Rhine-Westphalia alone. As construction work increases in the city, for example to put in new fiber optic cables, renovate bridges or improve the road network, excavations are bringing to light unexploded aerial ordnance that dates back to the 1930s and '40s. Major problem in Hamburg, Verdun, Poland Metropolitan regions such as Hamburg and Berlin were some of the main targets of Allied bombing during World War II. These places also saw civilian infrastructure targeted and so are particularly affected. In addition to the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Brandenburg is heavily contaminated. In 2024, explosive ordnance clearers found 90 mines, 48,000 grenades, 500 firebombs and 450 bombs weighing more than 11 pounds, as well as around 330,000 shells. The problem is also omnipresent in many neighboring countries. Unexploded ordnance from the two world wars is often found in France and Belgium, and particularly from World War I in the regions of Verdun and the Somme. Three years ago, the drought in Italy's Po Valley revealed unexploded bombs. In the UK in 2021, a German 2,200-pound aerial bomb was detonated in a controlled explosion in the southwestern city of Exeter and more than 250 buildings were damaged. The situation in Poland and the Czech Republic, where there are tons of unexploded ordnance from the two world wars in the ground, is also critical. In 2020, a 5-ton British-made Tallboy bomb was defused in the northwestern Polish town of Swinoujscie. Recently, there have even been fatal accidents in the Czech Republic. And in the Balkans, lives are in danger from unexploded ordnance that dates back to the wars of the 1990s and evacuations are a frequent occurrence. Deadly hazards in Vietnam, Laos, Gaza On the world's other continents, the situation is also critical. Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, people continue to be killed by US-made cluster bombs that were used in the 1960s and '70s. According to the UN, 80 million unexploded ordnances remain in the ground in Laos, from 500,000 US attacks conducted covertly between 1964 and 1973. There are also tons of unexploded ordnance in Syria and Iraq, where masses of people are at risk of being killed or wounded. In neither country have ordnance disposal structures been developed sufficiently. The UN says that unexploded ordnance in the war-torn Palestinian territory of Gaza has already left behind deadly hazards, even as Israel continues to bomb the strip. Cluster bombs remain a deadly hazard in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia Image: Sebastian Bozada/dpa/picture alliance A quarter of Ukraine contaminated The situation in Ukraine is dramatic. Since Russia's full-scale invasion of 2022, about a quarter of the country is thought to be contaminated with mines, cluster bombs and other explosive devices. Over half a million explosive devices have already been defused, but millions more remain. The humanitarian and economic consequences are enormous: hundreds of civilians have died, large areas of agricultural land are unusable, and crop failures are exacerbating the economic crisis. When the war ends, demining will be one of the tasks of the coming years. The munition searchers combing North Sea sands for WWII duds , To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video German federal states bear brunt of costs In Germany, where most of the bombs that are defused are from World War II and were made by the Allies, it is the federal states that bear the majority of the costs of their disposal. It is the German state that is responsible for German-made bombs going back to the era of the German Reich (1871 – 1945). Attempts to make it responsible for all the unexploded bombs in Germany have so far been unsuccessful. Last year, explosive ordnance disposal cost North Rhine-Westphalia €20 million ($23 million). While the costs rise, the technology used for bomb disposal has evolved. While in the 1990s, clearers still used their own hands, hammers, chisels and water pump pliers, today abrasive waterjet cutting is used to neutralize explosive devices. A waterjet cutter that is operated at a safe distance can cut through the explosive device and remove its fuse. Experts believe that there are tens of thousands of unexploded explosive devices, weighing up to 100,000 tons, in Germany alone. Cologne residents were forced to leave their homes in the biggest evacuation of the city since 1945 Image: Björn Kietzmann/DW Even though modern probing and detection techniques and digitized aerial photographs can help to minimize the risk, every bomb disposal operation is a race against time. The older a bomb is, the greater the risk of corrosion and explosion. It is also more difficult to defuse an older bomb because of the chemical changes that occur over time inside the bomb itself, between the casing and the fuse. The defusing of the three bombs in Cologne is not just an operation that has disrupted weddings and people's daily routines but it bears witness once again to the destruction of war, whether in Germany or France, Vietnam or Laos, Syria, Ukraine or Gaza. This article was translated from German.
DW
a day ago
- DW
Germany: Cologne evacuation lifted after WWII bombs defused – DW – 06/04/2025
Buildings across the center of the western city of Cologne were evacuated after the discovery of three WWII bombs. Some 20,000 people had been under evacuation orders. Large areas of the city center of Cologne were closed off on Wednesday as experts defused three bombs left over from World War II, which ended 80 years ago. The evacuation operation in Cologne, which has seen plenty of them over the years, was one of the largest to ever be carried out in the city since World War II, with some 20,000 people ordered to leave the affected area. What do we know about the evacuation? The process of defusing the bombs had to be delayed at one point because of a resident refusing to evacuate, according to a city spokesperson. An individual living in the old town resisted orders to leave their apartment, with public order officials, police, and the fire department enforcing removal measures. Kai Kulschewski, head of explosive ordnance disposal in the nearby city of Düsseldorf, who is coordinating the disposal, had earlier said everything was going to plan. He had added that the defusing operation had yet to begin as of the afternoon because not everyone had been evacuated yet. "We can only start when the last person is out," he said. Several roads have been closed off ahead of the operation Image: Thomas Banneyer/dpa/picture alliance Hotels, care homes evacuated The evacuated area included the entire old part of the city, 58 hotels, three Rhine bridges, the town hall, the railway station in the district of Deutz, which lies across the Rhine from the city center, museums, a hospital and two care homes. The city's major landmark, the Cologne Cathedral, was, however, situated just outside the danger area. Germany's national rail operator, Deutsche Bahn, had warned that many trains will be diverted or even canceled, and road traffic has was severely disrupted. The weapons — two 200-pound (90-kilogram) bombs and one 100-pound bomb, all manufactured in the US — were discovered in Deutz on Monday. Security personnel are out in force for the operation Image: Thomas Banneyer/dpa/picture alliance In a statement on its website, the City of Cologne said, "The evacuation is the largest such measure since the end of World War II. Everyone involved hopes that the defusal can be completed in the course of Wednesday." Bomb defusals are nothing new in Cologne, as it was one of the major bombing targets for Allied forces during the Second World War. Among other attacks, the British Royal Air Force targeted Cologne with its first "thousand-bomber raid" on a German city overnight to May 31, 1942, dropping 1,455 tons of bombs and destroying or damaging thousands of buildings. Edited by: Elizabeth Schumacher, Wesley Rahn
DW
a day ago
- DW
Germany updates: Merz set for inaugural trip to US – DW – 06/04/2025
06/04/2025 June 4, 2025 Germany seeking easier process to declare countries safe in asylum curbs The German government is looking at a simpler process when it comes to declaring countries of origin as safe, under a push by the new conservative-led coalition to reduce the number of asylum seekers. Chancellor Merz's Cabinet approved a draft policy in which a country can be declared safe with a simple statutory order and where the consent of the Bundesrat (Germany's upper house of parliament) is no longer needed. Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said the move was part of a whole package of "national measures (...) to implement the asylum turnaround." Under German asylum law, "safe countries of origin" are seen as those where people are not subject to political persecution or inhuman punishment. Migrants seeking asylum from these countries are likely to have asylum applications rejected, apart from exceptional cases. Deportations back to safe countries will also face fewer legal obstacles. Opposition lawmakers from the Green party have criticized the draft as contrary to German law, as have asylum and immigration NGOs. The reform still needs to be approved by the lower house of parliament, the Bundestag. The announcement comes just days after a court declared the government's tightened border security, including the turning back of asylum seekers, to be illegal under German law.
