Swedish prosecutors on Thursday charged a woman with crimes against humanity for actions she committed in Syria against women and children from the Yazidi minority between 2014 and 2016, the first time Sweden has brought such a charge.
According to Barrons, She was charged with “genocide, crimes against humanity and serious war crimes” because her actions formed part of a broader campaign by the group (IS) against the Kurdish-speaking Yazidi minority.
Prosecutors said she went to Syria to help establish the rule there of the Islamic State group, a militant group that seized large swaths of Syria and Iraq in 2014 before being eventually defeated.
The woman is suspected of “purchasing or receiving civilian women and children belonging to the Yazidi minority in her residence in Raqqa, Syria,” and treating them as slaves, prosecutor Rena Devgun said in a statement.
“Moreover, they were subjected to severe suffering, slavery, or other inhuman treatment. They were deprived of their liberty in the woman’s home and prevented from leaving in violation of international law,” she added.
The accused returned to Sweden in 2020, where she is currently serving a prison sentence for other crimes in Syria. Her lawyer, Mikael Westerlund, says she denies the new charges.
Swedish law allows courts to try citizens for crimes against international law committed abroad.
The prosecution said crimes against humanity could include murder, rape, torture, and forced labor if they were part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population.
In 2022, a Swedish court convicted the same woman of war crimes and violations of international law for failing to prevent her 12-year-old son from being recruited in the northern Syrian city of Raqqa when it was under Islamic State rule.
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