Sweden sentences woman to 12 years in prison for genocide, war crimes in Syria

A court in Stockholm on Tuesday convicted a Swedish woman of genocide, crimes against humanity and gross war crimes committed in Syria in 2015 against women and children of the Yazidi religious minority, sentencing her to 12 years in prison.

The woman, identified as 52-year-old Swedish citizen Lina Ishaq, returned to Sweden in 2020 and is currently serving time for other offences committed in Syria.

"The crimes constitute an exceptionally serious violation, not only of the life and integrity of specific individuals but also of fundamental human values and humanity," Stockholm's district court said in its verdict on Tuesday.

Abuse of Yazidi women 

Islamic State controlled swathes of Iraq and Syria from 2014-2017, before being defeated in its last bastions in Syria in 2019.

It viewed the Yazidis, an ancient religious minority, as devil worshippers and killed more than 3,000 of them, as well as enslaving 7,000 Yazidi women and girls and displacing most of the 550,000-strong community from its ancestral home in northern Iraq.

"Through her actions, the woman upheld the imprisonment and the enslavement of the injured parties initiated by IS (Islamic State)," the court said of Ishaq.

The United Nations has said Islamic State attacks on the Yazidis amounted to a genocidal campaign against them.

Her lawyer Mikael Westerlund told Reuters that Ishaq still denied the charges and would consider an appeal.