ISIS bride chained up five-year-old girl in sun and let her die of thirst

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Jennifer W. arrives for her trial in 2021 (Image: Getty Images)
Jennifer W. arrives for her trial in 2021 (Image: Getty Images)

A German ISIS bride who was involved in the death of a five-year-old Yazidi girl is set to have her sentence increased.

Jennifer Wenisch, 31, and her husband, an ISIS fighter, bought the five-year-old girl and her mother as slaves.

In August 2015 the girl died after being chained up in the scorching sun.

Germany's top court said Wenisch's previous sentence of 10 years in 2021 was too lenient.

After the child became ill and wet her mattress, Wenisch’s husband chained her outside their home as punishment and let the child die of thirst in the desert heat.

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The child’s mother, who was forced to witness her death, was the trial’s main witness, testifying for over 11 days.

Wenisch was judged to have committed a crime against humanity, having stood by when her husband left the girl to die of thirst.

ISIS bride chained up five-year-old girl in sun and let her die of thirstJennifer W. (right) arrives with her lawyers Sera Basay-Yildiz (left) and Ali Aydin (Getty Images)

She denied the charge but a Munich court found her guilty of being an accessory to murder but ruled that her case was a less severe one.

Germany's Federal Court of Justice disagreed that her crime had been less severe and the original sentence, nine years for the death of a child resulting from slavery plus two-and-a-half years for membership of a terror group, to be served over 10 years, will now be reviewed.

This case, for a crime which took place in the northern Iraqi city of Fallujah, was one of the first instances of an Islamic State offence against the Yazidi community going to trial.

The Yazidis are a Kurdish group from northern Iraq who were subject to immense brutality from the militant group.

Islamic State militants tore through the region where Yazidis lived in 2014, murdering thousands of men and kidnapping many more women and children to be brutally kept as slaves or sold on markets.

ISIS bride chained up five-year-old girl in sun and let her die of thirstYazidi refugees in Zakho, Iraqi Kurdistan, Iraq (ZUMA/REX)

In the hours and days that followed, approximately 12,000 Yazidis were killed or abducted by ISIS. Around 7,000 women were forced into sexual slavery by ISIS, with over 3,000 women unaccounted for.

The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic found that IS’s actions against the Yazidis amounted to multiple war crimes and crimes against humanity, as well as genocide.

Wenisch's husband, Iraqi jihadist Taha al-Jumailly, is serving a life sentence.

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Wenisch allegedly served in an IS "anti-vice squad" that enforced strict Islamic rules in the Iraqi cities of Mosul and Fallujah.

She stood trial in Germany because of the legal principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows prosecutions for alleged war crimes, including genocide, which took place in other countries.

London-based human rights lawyer Amal Clooney was part of the legal team representing the girl's mother.

Rachel Hagan

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