Sonia M., a returnee from Syria and former wife of an emir of the Islamic State group, was indicted on March 14 in France for crimes against humanity and genocide. She is suspected of having enslaved a Yazidi teenager in Syria.
The civil party, now aged 25, was 16 when she was bought by Abdelnasser Benyoucef, alias “Abou Moutana”, head of IS external operations.
This man, currently the subject of an arrest warrant according to a Source close to the investigation, was also sentenced in his absence in France for an aborted attack in 2015 in Villejuif, in the Paris suburbs.
According to elements of the investigation, revealed Saturday by the daily The Parisian and of which AFP became aware, the Yezidi denounced a daily newspaper of mistreatment.
During a hearing last February, she claimed to have been held captive for more than a month in spring 2015 in Syria. She says she couldn’t drink, eat or shower without Sonia M’s permission.
She accuses the latter of having raped her twice and of having been aware that her husband was raping her.
“Divine Order”
Questioned on March 14 by an anti-terrorism investigating judge, Sonia M. denied having committed any abuse and denounced “a single rape” of her former husband. The teenager “left her room freely, ate what she wanted, went to the bathroom when she needed”she said in her interview, which AFP was informed of.
She also assured that she was not carrying a pistol, as the young Yezidi claims.
Kidnapped in August 2014 in Iraq, the teenager was sold to several jihadist families.
“He told me it was going to be […] his slave”
Sonia M. claimed that her husband did not give her “asked for his opinion”. “He told me that it was going to be, I don’t like this word, his slave, that it was a right that had been granted to him and that I had no right to contradict him, that it was a divine order”. She said she did not like giving orders and did the cleaning herself when her husband was away.
The investigating judge, who initially indicted her as an accomplice, finally indicted her as the perpetrator for acts spanning from September 2014 to March 2019.
These new lawsuits are “opportunistic accusations”was outraged by Sonia M.’s lawyer, Me Nabil Boudi. “We want to make him responsible for the most serious crimes because justice has failed to apprehend the real perpetrators.”
“Shattered by these accusations”Sonia M. is a “convinced repentance”further assured his advice, as “all his testimonies in various terrorist trials attest to this”. “I am convinced that justice will ultimately exonerate him.”
If the investigating magistrate orders a trial for Sonia M., this hearing will be “the first trial of a ghost for crimes against humanity”notes for his part Me Romain Ruiz, lawyer for the Yezidi.
The debates “will test France’s ability to judge war crimes committed in Syria”estimated the lawyer.
“Document these crimes”
French justice is giving itself the means to investigate the fate of minorities under the Islamic State.
At the end of 2016, a preliminary investigation called “structural” was opened for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Iraq and Syria since 2012 “to the detriment of ethnic and religious minorities”explained the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (Pnat) to AFP on Saturday.
These investigations relate in particular to crimes suffered by “members of the Yazidi community and the Christian community” And “members of the Sheitat tribe”.
“The objective is to document these crimes and identify the French perpetrators belonging to the Islamic State organization”added the public prosecutor.
