French IS member convicted of genocide for atrocities against Yazidis

Sabri Essid also found guilty of crimes against humanity after harrowing evidence from women enslaved by jihadist A French member of Islamic State has been convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity for atrocities committed against Yazidis in a historic judgment that highlighted the atrocities committed by jihadists. The Paris criminal court found Sabri Essid, who was tried in his absence, directly participated in an organised system of killing, raping and enslaving members of the Iraqi ethnic and religious minority who are descended from some of the region’s most ancient roots. The case was based on harrowing evidence from two Yazidi women who were “owned” by the Toulouse-born terrorist in the IS Iraqi-Syrian declared caliphate between 2014 and 2016. One victim told the court an IS member had bought her in exchange for a car and a gun before selling her to Essid, who made her his sexual slave, raping her every day, often in front of her two-year-old daughter. Her ordeal lasted more than two years. “I would like Yazidi voices to be heard, not only in France, but throughout the world,” the woman told the court. A number of women who had managed to escape IS identified Essid a