Swedish Woman Sentenced for Genocide Against Yazidis as IS Crimes Face Justice

A Swedish court has convicted Lina Ishaq, a former member of Islamic State, to 12 years in prison for genocide and war crimes against the Yazidi people, a landmark case in Sweden’s handling of IS atrocities.

A Swedish woman, Lina Ishaq, has received a 12-year prison sentence after being found guilty of committing genocide and war crimes against the Yazidi people while she was affiliated with the jihadist group Islamic State (IS) in Syria. The court determined that the 52-year-old enslaved three Yazidi women and six Yazidi children in Raqqa between 2014 and 2016. Her trial represents the first instance in which crimes committed against the Yazidis, a religious minority in Iraq, have been prosecuted in Sweden.

Ishaq moved to Syria in 2013 with her family to join IS and had been previously sentenced for taking her two-year-old son to the conflict zone and failing to prevent IS from using her then 12-year-old son as a child soldier—who tragically died in 2017 at the age of 16. During her time with IS, she was found to have forcibly converted her captives, subjecting them to physical abuse and requiring them to wear a veil and adhere to Islamic practices.

Judge Maria Ulfsdotter Klang highlighted Ishaq's active role in the systematic enslavement instituted by IS against Yazidi women and children, underscoring that she contributed to the ongoing trafficking and detainment of these victims. Her actions have been described as part of a larger genocidal strategy against the Yazidi community, which faced devastating losses during IS’s assault in 2014—resulting in approximately 5,000 deaths and the displacement of over 400,000 individuals.

Ishaq has been linked to a movement of 300 Swedish nationals who joined IS, which included around a quarter who were women. After the fall of IS's territorial control in 2017, she escaped to Turkey and was extradited to Sweden in 2020. In Sweden, the Yazidi population has continued to grow, with around 6,000 individuals currently residing in the country.

Dawood Khalaf, the chairman of the Yazidi association in Skaraborg, noted that Ishaq's prosecution could foster greater trust between the Yazidi community and local authorities. He encouraged witnesses to come forward, illustrating a shift in the atmosphere regarding the community's relationship with Swedish law enforcement. Meanwhile, Ishaq's lawyer has stated that his client denies the allegations and may pursue an appeal against the verdict.