Germany detains two Iraqis suspected of IS genocide against Yazidi minority

“They held a then five-year-old Yazidi girl as a slave since no later than late 2015. Since October 2017, they enslaved a then twelve-year-old Yazidi girl as well. Twana H. S. repeatedly raped both children,” the prosecutor said.

The suspects denied the girls the right to practise their own religion and beat them, before handing them over to other IS members, it added: “All of this served the organisation’s objective to destroy the Yazidi religion.”

The suspects were brought before an investigating judge, who ordered that they be placed in pre-trial detention.

Germany jailed an IS member for the first time in 2021 for involvement in genocide and crimes against humanity committed against Yazidis in Iraq and Syria — including the murder of a five-year-old girl.

The authorities have also cracked down on some Muslim and Palestinian groups in the country after the Hamas attacks on Israel Oct. 7 in which around 1,200 people were killed on Israeli soil and hundreds more taken hostage.

In March, German police arrested two Afghan nationals on suspicion of supporting IS. They were also accused of planning an attack on the Swedish parliament.

And last December, the authorities announced the arrest in Berlin and Rotterdam of four men suspected of being part of a Hamas terror cell that planned terror attacks against Jewish institutions in Europe.