Overview
- The Paris Assizes Court found Sabri Essid guilty of genocide, crimes against humanity, and complicity for offenses committed between 2014 and 2016 in Syria and Iraq.
- Judges sentenced Essid to life imprisonment in absentia because he is presumed to have been killed in 2018 without proof of death.
- The court said Islamic State specifically targeted Yazidis for their beliefs and that Essid took part in a network that bought and resold Yazidi women and children.
- A Yazidi survivor testified that she was captured in 2014, paraded and sold in markets, raped by multiple captors including Essid, and ultimately escaped to a Kurdish-controlled post.
- The case aligns with a growing body of European rulings that recognize the campaign against Yazidis as genocide, including a 2021 German judgment and a recent Swedish conviction.