An Iraqi court has sentenced the widow of late ISIL (ISIS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to death for her involvement in the terrorist group and for holding Yazidi women, according to the judiciary.
The woman, who is in detention, was sentenced under Iraq’s anti-terrorism statute by a court in west Baghdad, according to a statement released on Wednesday by Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council.
She was suspected of working with ISIL and holding kidnapped Yazidi women in her Mosul home before being captured by ISIL fighters in Sinjar, northern Iraq.
The court did not name the accused woman, but a judicial official cited by the local new agency identified her as Asma Mohamed.
She was sentenced to “death by hanging”, a court official told foreign media, adding that the ruling must be ratified by an Iraqi appeals court to become final and applicable.
The charges against al-Baghdadi’s wife come nearly five years after US special forces assassinated the ISIL leader, who had established a self-proclaimed “caliphate” across wide swathes of Iraq and Syria.
Yazidis faced persecution following al-Baghdadi’s rapid push through northern Iraq in 2014. ISIL fighters massacred thousands of their men and subjected Yazidi women to sexual enslavement.
More than ten years later, members of the minority community are still battling to recover from ISIL’s onslaught, with over 200,000 displaced, according to a Refugees International and Voice of Ezidi report. Few have gotten restitution or compensation.
Since ISIL was driven out of all the territory it controlled in Iraq in 2017, Iraqi courts have handed down hundreds of death sentences and life prison terms to those convicted of membership in “a terrorist group”. They include more than 500 foreign men and women found guilty of joining ISIL.
In February, Iraq announced it had secured the repatriation of some members of al-Baghdadi’s family, who had been detained in Turkey.
Al-Baghdadi was known to have four wives. More than a week after his death in 2019, Turkey said it had captured one of his wives and other family members.
