Germany jails Islamic State member for life over role in Yazidi genocide

Iraqi defendant Taha Al-J. covers his face as he talks to his lawyers Serkan Alkan and Martin Heising before his verdict in a courtroom in Frankfurt, Germany, November 30, 2021. The 31-year-old Iraqi IS supporter is accused of using a 5-year-old Yazidi girl as his slave before he left her to die in the summer heat. Frank Rumpenhorst/Pool via REUTERS

FRANKFURT (Reuters) -A German court on Tuesday jailed a former Islamic State militant for life for involvement in genocide and crimes against humanity against minority Yazidis in Iraq and Syria, including the murder of a five-year-old girl.

It was the first genocide verdict against a member of Islamic State, an offshoot of al Qaeda that seized large swathes of Iraq and Syria in 2014 before being ousted by U.S.-backed counter-offensives, losing its last territorial redoubt in 2019.