German court convicts ex-IS member in Yazidi girl’s death

By FRANK JORDANS
Associated Press

BERLIN (AP) — A former member of the Islamic State group has been convicted by a German court of genocide and committing a war crime over the death of a 5-year-old Yazidi girl he had purchased as a slave and then chained up in the hot sun to die.  The Frankfurt regional court sentenced the Iraqi defendant to life imprisonment and ordered him to pay the girl’s mother 50,000 euros ($57,000). German news agency dpa quoted the presiding judge saying it was the first conviction worldwide over a person’s role in the Islamic State’s systematic persecution of the Yazidi religious minority. The defendant’s lawyers had denied the allegations made against their client. His German wife was sentenced last month to 10 years in prison over the girl’s death.