Germany: Iraqi couple accused of abusing Yazidi girls

Germany's federal prosecutor on Monday charged an Iraqi couple with enslavement, torture and war crimes, after they allegedly kept two young Yazidi girls as slaves and sexually and physically abused them.

The couple, identified as Twana H.S. and Asia R.A.  in line with German privacy law, were arrested in the southern state of Bavaria in April.

The two are also suspected to have been members of the so-called "Islamic State" (IS) extremist group in Iraq and  Syria between October 2015 and December 2017, the prosecutor said in a statement.

What are the accusations against the couple?

They allegedly kept a 5-year-old Yazidi girl as a slave starting in late 2015, and a 12-year-old from October 2017.

According to the prosecutor, the couple bought the two children in a bazaar in Iraq.

The man is accused of having raped the girls, while the woman allegedly prepared the room and put makeup on one of the girls.

The couple also exerted "harsh physical violence" on the girls, forcing them to work constantly and subjecting them to beatings, according to prosecutors.

Before they left Syria in November 2017, the suspects allegedly handed the girls over to other IS members.

"All of this served the organization's objective to destroy the Yazidi religion," the prosecutor's statement said.

The ethno-religious Yazidi minority mostly resides in northern Iraq. In 2014, they became a target for IS.

ftm/nm (dpa, AP)