The wife of late Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is set to be hanged after an Iraqi court on Wednesday issued a death sentence against her for committing “crimes against humanity,” genocide against the Yazidi people and “terrorist actions.”
Asma Mohammed was arrested in Turkey in 2018 before being handed over to the Iraqis last year, The Associated Press is reporting, citing court and security officials.
Bill Roggio, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the editor of its Long War Journal, told Fox News Digital that in Iraq, “there’s a lot of jihadists and their family members in prison” and that “this is how Iraq appears to be going to deal with it, at least with the high-profile detainees.”
“It’s highly likely that given how family members of senior leaders were involved in terrorist operations, propaganda, it’s likely that she is involved,” he added.
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However, he also suggested that Mohammed’s hanging “will be used by the Islamic State as recruiting fodder,” with the terrorist group potentially aiming to turn her into a “martyr.”
Iraqi officials allege ISIS gangs kidnapped women of the Yazidi religious minority and that Mohammed held them prisoner in her home in Mosul, according to Reuters.
“The criminal court today sentenced Baghdadi’s wife to death by hanging for crimes against humanity and genocide against the Yazidi people and also for contributing to terrorism actions,” one Iraqi court official told the news agency.
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Baghdadi killed himself by detonating an explosive vest during a U.S. special forces raid in Syria in 2019.
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said last August that “ISIS abducted and killed thousands of Yezidis, forcing boys to become child soldiers and selling women and girls into sexual slavery.
“The number of people killed remains unknown, and discoveries of mass graves continue,” he added at the time. “The scars of that experience are borne by Yazidis around the world to this day.”
