German ISIS bride jailed for 14 years for crimes against humanity

German ISIS bride who chained up five-year-old Yazidi slave girl in the sun and let her die of thirst, then held a gun to the head of the child’s mother to stop her crying is jailed for 14 years

• Wenisch allowed the five-year-old to die of thirst while chained up in the sun
• She and her husband bought the Yazidi girl and her mother as household slaves

A German woman who joined the Islamic State and chained up a five-year-old Yazidi slave girl, leaving her to die of thirst in the baking sun, has been handed a 14-year prison sentence by a Munich court. 

Jennifer Wenisch, originally from Lohne in Lower Saxony, joined ISIS in Iraq and allowed the young girl to die of thirst for wetting the bed in August 2015.

She and her then-husband, an ISIS fighter, had bought the young Yazidi girl and her mother as household slaves, and went on to commit horrific acts of abuse. 

The woman argued in court that her husband had restrained the girl and left her to die, but judges decided that she was equally responsible for the girl’s fate.

Prosecutors also pointed out that Wenisch later put a gun to the slave mother’s head and threatened to shoot her in an attempt to prevent her crying over her daughter’s horrific fate.  

The Higher Regional Court in Munich this morning charged Wenisch, 32, with enslavement resulting in death and accused her of having ‘acted out of contempt for fellow human beings’.

Defendant Jennifer Wenisch arrives in a courtroom for her trial in Munich, October 25, 2021

Jennifer Wenisch, originally from Lohne in Lower Saxony, joined ISIS in Iraq and allowed the young girl to die of thirst after she was chained up in the sun

The sentencing comes after Germany’s Federal Court of Justice threw out an appeal by Wenisch, who was initially convicted in October 2021 of two counts of crimes against humanity through enslavement, in one case resulting in death, being an accessory to attempted murder and membership in a terrorist organisation abroad.

Wenisch was taken into custody while trying to renew her identity papers at the German Embassy in Ankara in 2016, and deported to Germany.

Her former husband, an Iraqi citizen who was identified only as Taha Al-J., was convicted by a Frankfurt court in November 2021 of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and bodily harm resulting in death. 

He was sentenced to life imprisonment.

The girl’s mother, who survived captivity, testified at both trials.

Following her conversion to Islam, Wenisch was recruited by the terrorist organisation in mid-2015 to the group’s self-styled hisbah morality police. 

She patrolled city parks in IS-occupied Fallujah and Mosul, armed with an AK-47 assault rifle, a pistol, and an explosives vest.

She was tasked by the group to ensure strict IS rules on dress code, public behaviour, and bans on alcohol and tobacco.

The German ISIS member was originally given 10 years in prison in 2021 for her involvement in the death of a five-year-old Yazidi slave girl

German law allows for a life sentence in cases where a defendant’s actions result in a person’s death 

Wenisch’s initial trial began in April 2019, and is one of the first examples of court proceedings over the Islamic State group’s brutal treatment of Yazidis. 

A Kurdish-speaking group hailing from northern Iraq, the Yazidis were specifically targeted and oppressed by the jihadists beginning in 2015. 

London-based human rights lawyer Amal Clooney – who was involved in a campaign for ISIS crimes against the Yazidi community to be recognised as a ‘genocide’ – was part of the team representing the Yazidi girl’s mother.

Germany has charged several German and foreign nationals with war crimes and crimes against humanity carried out abroad, using the legal principle of universal jurisdiction which allows crimes to be prosecuted even if they were committed in a foreign country.

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