Iraqi Court Sentences Islamic State Leader's Wife to Death

An Iraqi court sentenced the wife of the leader of the Islamic State (IS) group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, to death, accused of kidnapping women from the Yezidi religious ethnic group, it was announced today.

The wife of polygamist Baghdadi was brought back to Iraq after being detained in Turkey, judicial sources told the AFP news agency, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"The criminal court of Karkh (west of Baghdad) sentenced the wife of terrorist Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to death for the crime of collaboration with the terrorist group Daech (the Arabic acronym for IS) and for detaining Yezidi women in their home," announced the Superior Council of the Judiciary on its website.

Baghdadi's wife detained Yezidi women who "were later kidnapped" by IS jihadists in Sinjar, in northern Iraq, according to the same source.

A judicial source identified the convict as Asma Mohammed.

Washington announced in October 2019 that US troops had killed Baghdadi in an operation in northwestern Syria, five years after he proclaimed a "caliphate" over vast areas of Syria and neighboring Iraq.

During their lightning strike in northern Iraq in 2014, IS jihadists attacked the non-Muslim Yezidi minority, systematically killing thousands of men and turning women into sex slaves.

In recent years, Iraqi courts have handed down hundreds of death sentences and life sentences under the penal code for belonging to a "terrorist group".

Among those convicted are more than 500 foreign men and women for belonging to IS.

In February, Iraq announced that it had obtained "the repatriation of Baghdadi's family", with a judicial source telling AFP that Baghdadi's wife, "detained in Turkey", had been repatriated with her children.

This announcement coincided with the broadcast of an interview with "Baghdadi's wife" on the Saudi pan-Arab television channel Al Arabiya. At the time, she was given the name Asma Mohammed.

In November 2019, Turkey said it had detained Baghdadi's wife in June 2018, who Turkish media identified as Asma Fawzi Mohammed al-Qubaysi.

American-backed forces defeated IS in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria two years later. But the group's cells continue to attack civilians and security forces in both countries.