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A United Nations group investigating the atrocities in Iraq has found “clear and credible evidence” that ISIL (ISIS) “committed” genocide against the Yazidi minority in 2014, saying the armed group had successfully developed chemical weapons and used mustard gas. du.
In a report to the UN Security Council on Monday, Karim Khan said the group also concluded that ISIL had committed war crimes mainly against unarmed Shiite cadets and Tikrit Air Academy staff, who were captured, tortured and massacred in June 2014.
According to him, an ISIL video released in July 2015 showed the killings as “a direct and public impetus for the genocide against Shiite Muslims.”
The Security Council unanimously voted in September 2017 to call for the creation of a UN investigation team to keep evidence in Iraq and to promote ISIL’s responsibility for “war crimes, crimes against humanity and possible genocide” in Iraq and the Levant region. , Including Syria.
In his sixth report to the council, Khan said the Da’esh / ISIL (UNITAD) has been rapidly expanding the number of pieces of evidence in the last six months to promote responsibility for crimes committed.
In gathering forensic evidence at common grave sites, digital data from ISIL hard drives, digitization of case files, and use of advanced technological tools to process and search databases have been described as “clear developments” by the group to “clearly implement.” chronologies of the activities of key ISIL members. “
‘Milestone moment’
Khan described it as an “important moment” for UNITAD to establish convincing evidence that in the Sinil region ISIL committed genocide with the intent to “physically and biologically destroy Yazidi as a religious group”.
It was revealed in the ISIL ultimatum applied to “convert or kill” all Jazidis and resulted in thousands of deaths, “massively executed, shooting while fleeing, or dying when they tried to flee Mount Sinjar,” Khan said. . “There were thousands of other slaves, women and children kidnapped from their families and subjected to the most heinous abuses, including serious rape and other forms of unbearable sexual violence that lasted for many years, often leading to death.”
Yazidis are an ethno-religious minimum of about 550,000 in the heart of northwestern Iraq before ISIL entered the rugged region in 2014. Their beliefs combine elements of various ancient Middle Eastern religions. ISIL, because of Yazidi heresies, killed thousands of Yazidi men, kidnapped women and girls and forced boys to fight for it during a time when it controlled large areas of Iraq and Syria.
Khan said crimes against Yazidis continue, with thousands of women and children separated from their families or missing and some still with ISIL kidnappers or those who sold them.
Last year, Amnesty International warn Nearly 2,000 Yazidi children and survivors who suffered horrific human rights violations at the hands of ISIL did not receive the support they needed to cope with enduring physical and mental trauma, as well as those with long-term serious illness or physical impairment.
TO @KarimKhanQC in his 6th appearance #UNSC: I can confirm to the Council on the basis of our independent criminal investigation, @UNITAD_Iraq has established clear and compelling evidence #Genocide was made in #ISIL against #Yazidis as a religious group. pic.twitter.com/SBJIIA0FRR
– UNITAD (@UNITAD_Iraq) May 10, 2021
In 2016, the UN-mandated International Commission of Inquiry into Syria also said that ISIL was committing genocide against the Yazidis, and several NGOs have adopted that conclusion.
Khan said what UNITAD had done about the Yazidis was more important to the group because it was ordered to examine the various pieces of evidence that could be faced in the trial court on the indictment – “and not draw the brush on the victim’s survey strokes”.
Khan also said that information from the armed group’s electronic devices led UNITAD to open a new investigation “that ISIL has successfully developed and disseminated chemical and biological weapons in Iraq.”
Evidence received by UNITAD determines how the team used the laboratories of Mosul University “as the epicenter of its chemical weapons program, drawing on the expertise of Iraqi and foreign scientists and medical professionals,” Khan said.
Initially, he said, ISIL armed with chlorine from water treatment plants captured by its fighters in 2014 and then developed “deadly toxic compounds, such as thallium and nicotine, that were tested on living prisoners, causing death.”
ISIL then developed a system for producing mustard gas, also called sulfur mustard, “The Taza Khurmatu was opened in March 2016 by firing 40 rockets in the Turkmen town of Shia,” Khan said.
Khan, who will become chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court on June 15, said the investigation is progressing and that the initial results are expected to be completed within five months.
By the end of the year, the group predicts initial results of “targeting crimes against the Iraqi Christian minority, Kaka’i, Shabak, Turkish Turkish and Sunni communities, as well as the massacre of mostly Shiite prisoners in Badush prison.”
Khan said the next step is to use the information and evidence gathered by UNITAD to “meet the expectations of the survivors” and bring it before the national courts to try those responsible for these “horrific crimes”.
Iraqi lawmakers hope that ISIL members will take the legal basis to stand trial for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
He welcomed legislation presented to parliament in the Iraqi Kurdistan region last week to establish a tribunal with jurisdiction over international crimes committed by ISIL.
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