Woman to be tried in France for 'genocide' after allegedly enslaving Yazidi teenager

French citizen is accused of enslaving, imprisoning, torturing, raping or enabling the rape of a teenager

Children cross the road as cars drive by in the northern Syrian city of Raqqa, the former Syrian capital of the ISIS group, on May 1, 2019. AFP

A woman in France is due to be tried on "genocide" charges over the alleged enslavement of a Yazidi teenager in Syria, a source close to the case said Tuesday. Sonia Mejri, 35, who was born in southern France, is accused of aiding her then husband – a high-ranking member of ISIS – to enslave and rape the teenager in spring 2015, when part of Syria and neighbouring Iraq were under the group's rule.

Ms Mejri will be tried on charges of "genocide" and "crimes against humanity" for allegedly enslaving, imprisoning, torturing, raping or enabling the rape of the girl, the document ordering the trial said. The court is also to examine allegations that the couple converted, or attempted to convert, the teenager to Islam through acts such as "ablutions following the rapes".

Ms Mejri's lawyer was not immediately available for comment. She has repeatedly denied the allegations.

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The young Yazidi woman said she was held hostage for more than a month when she was 16, during which time she could not drink, eat or shower without Mejri's permission. The teenager alleged Ms Mejri was violent to her on two occasions and knew the husband was raping her.

Ms Mejri's husband, Abdelnasser Benyoucef, was involved in founding a branch of ISIS that specialised in external operations. He has been sentenced in absentia over a failed attack in France in 2015 and an arrest warrant is out for him, although he is thought to have been killed in an air strike in 2016.

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ISIS seized control of large areas of Syria and neighbouring Iraq in 2014, before US-backed Syrian forces ousted them from their last patch of land in eastern Syria in 2019. The Yazidis are a Kurdish-speaking group from northern Iraq.

The Sunni extremist ISIS group attacked the Yazidi bastion of Sinjar in August 2014, killing more than 1,200 people, according to local authorities. A further 6,400 Yazidis were abducted, around half of whom were rescued or managed to flee.

France launched an investigation in 2016 into genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed against ethnic and religious minorities in Iraq and Syria since 2012. Other European countries are also prosecuting alleged ISIS members on similar charges.

Swedish prosecutors said last week they had brought "genocide" charges against a 52-year-old woman accused of keeping Yazidi women and children as slaves at her home in Syria between 2014 and 2016. German prosecutors said in April that two suspected ISIS members had been arrested and accused of enslaving and sexually abusing two Yazidi girls aged five and 12 in Syria and Iraq.