The trial will of course take place without the accused, but it remains “extremely important”, according to civil parties’ lawyer Clémence Bectarte. In France, she says, it could constitute the first judicial recognition of the genocide committed by Islamic State (IS) against Yazidis in Syria and Iraq. And for the survivors she represents, it is above all important to get recognition, at least in part, for “the crimes they have suffered” -- atrocities perpetrated as part of a vast policy of extermination and enslavement specifically targeting the Yazidi community. The Yazidis are a Kurdish-speaking ethno-religious minority. IS, which many states class as a terrorist organization, considers them to be “devil worshippers”.
Sabri Essid, alias Abu Doujanah al-Faransi, is to be tried before the Paris Assize Court starting March 16 for his alleged participation in these crimes. Born in Toulouse in 1984, this French jihadist joined IS in Syria in 2014 before joining Amniyat, the branch responsible for internal security and intelligence for ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria). Presumed dead since 2018, he will be tried in absentia.
This man is being prosecuted for inflicting, between 2014 and 2016, “serious physical or psychological harm”—constituting genocide—on five Yazidi women and their children, as part of a “concerted plan” aimed at the “total or partial destruction” of their community. Essid is also accused of enslaving four of them after buying, raping, torturing, persecuting, and subjecting them to inhumane treatment constituting crimes against humanity. Finally, he is being prosecuted for “complicity” in these crimes, for transferring a fifth woman and her three children “to a new place of enslavement”, where they were allegedly subjected to the same violence.
This is a first in France. Until now, French nationals who joined Islamic State have mainly been prosecuted for terrorist offences, not for crimes against civilian populations. But this will undoubtedly not be the last such case, since the proceedings against Essid are part of a much broader investigation focusing specifically on crimes committed by IS jihadists in Syria and Iraq.
A policy of extermination and enslavement
It all started in August 2014. IS launched a series of coordinated attacks in the Sinjar region of northwest Iraq, the cradle of the Yazidi population. Within a few days, thousands of people – mostly men -- were executed or captured. At the same time, tens of thousands of others took refuge in the mountains to try to escape the assault. They quickly found themselves trapped, surrounded by IS fighters, in particularly extreme conditions. More than 1,700 people—almost all of them children—died of starvation, dehydration, or their injuries.
But the offensive was only the first step in a much broader policy aimed at enslaving or exterminating the Yazidi population, described by ISIS as “an idolatrous sect of original infidels”. The jihadists systematically implemented this policy, displacing and categorizing members of the community according to their age or gender. Men and teenage boys were ordered to convert. If they refused, they were immediately executed or subjected to forced labour. Young boys were converted and recruited into the group’s ranks, while women and girls over the age of eight were captured to be sold as sex slaves and domestic servants, or directly “offered” to jihadists. Among them are the five Yazidi women identified as Essid’s alleged victims.
According to Bectarte, three of them have filed civil suits with their children, and two of them are expected to be present at the hearing. Another one “now wants to turn the page”, she says, while a fifth has never been found. For these survivors, “the psychological trauma remains extreme, regardless of where they live today,” the lawyer stresses.
Investigations target 18 French nationals
In 2016, as the group’s genocidal policy continued, the war crimes unit of the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (PNAT) opened a so-called “structural” investigation. It aims to identify and prosecute French nationals involved in abuses against all minorities in Syria and Iraq, including those committed in the context of the Yazidi genocide.
These investigations draw particularly on the work of several international investigative mechanisms, as well as that of civil society organizations like the Iraqi association Kinyat and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH). These organizations have helped identify several Yazidi women, some of whom were former captives of Essid, according to Bectarte. She also represents the two NGOs in the proceedings.
According to Sophie Havard, head of the PNAT’s specialized unit, this is a “very active” investigation that has made it possible to “open and substantiate a significant number of proceedings”. A total of 18 French nationals are being targeted for their alleged involvement in these crimes. More specifically, Havard explains, four individual investigations are ongoing against seven women and three men, while six judicial probes have been opened concerning five women and three men. These cases have all been classified as both terrorist crimes and international crimes, she adds, “with the exception of the case concerning Sabri Essid, as the terrorism aspect is still under investigation”.
Among the most advanced cases is that of Sonia Mejri and her ex-husband Abdelnasser Benyoucef, alias Abou Mouthana, presumed dead since 2016. This case is set to be the first trial of a French woman charged with both offences. It is scheduled for March 2027, despite several legal twists and turns. Before the indictment was confirmed, Mejri’s defence team had got the charges of genocide and crimes against humanity—of which she is notably accused— dismissed before the investigating chamber of the Paris Appeal Court. The judges had ruled that a single identified victim was not sufficient to characterize genocide and that the charges were insufficient with regard to crimes against humanity, explains her lawyer Marceau Perdereau. However, the Court of Cassation partially overturned this, ruling that an act committed against a single person could constitute genocide if it was part of a “concerted plan”. The decision of the first investigating chamber was ultimately overturned by a new panel of judges at the Paris Court of Appeal.
Women’s responsibility in the genocide
Havard says this case “illustrates the difficulties in understanding highly complex criminal charges”, particularly when assessing the role of women who joined IS and “their criminal behaviour”. “The challenge is to understand their responsibility in its entirety,” explains the magistrate. This involves, in particular, “deconstructing” certain defence strategies that present these women “as mere wives, victims under influence who had no choice and no say in the enslavement of Yazidi women”.
More specifically, the prosecution is seeking to establish whether some of them participated in the IS system of enslavement by holding Yazidi captives in their houses, facilitating their sexual or domestic exploitation, or contributing to their surveillance. This is particularly important, Havard continues, because even though “the women were initially assigned to the domestic sphere”, this private sphere could function “as a kind of Islamic micro-state” in which “some women were responsible for controlling the slaves” -- especially in the absence of their husbands.
Perdereau says his client has stated since the beginning of the proceedings that “the fate of the Yazidis was one of the first factors that motivated her ideological disengagement”. According to him, she “would never have been charged if she had not spontaneously mentioned the presence of a young Yazidi woman held in her home by her ex-husband”.
However, other cases could further clarify the scope of these charges. This is particularly true in the case of Lolita Cacitti, a French national who returned from Syria and is suspected of having participated in the enslavement of a Yazidi child. According to the investigation, she allegedly handed the young captive over to a Saudi IS fighter who claimed ownership of her. Last January, the PNAT requested that Cacitti be referred to the criminal court for complicity in genocide. A third trial could therefore be organized around this case, subject to the decision of the investigating judges and any appeals.
While the qualification of the criminal charges is particularly relevant for women, they would also have to appear in person before the French courts. Of the twelve women targeted by proceedings, four have been repatriated to France and are currently in detention. Conversely, five of the six men implicated are presumed dead, including Essid. According to the specialized unit, the other nine individuals are thought to be alive but probably still in north-western Syria, either free, detained, or held in camps.
The trial of the “presumed dead”
When asked about the merits of trying in absentia a person who is presumed dead, Havard acknowledges that “the debate exists”. However, criminal law allows it “when we do not have absolute certainty of death”. The magistrate also points out that this is a “long-standing” practice of the PNAT in terrorism cases. On the other hand, it is unprecedented for international crimes.
Under these circumstances, Essid is expected to be tried without any specific representation at the hearing or any defence. The crimes he is accused of will also be examined by a “special” panel of three professional magistrates, without a jury. “If we choose this form of justice by default,” Havard continues, “it is to help end the impunity for these crimes. And to give a trial to the victims who have been waiting for justice for the past ten years”. This is a criminal policy to which Bectarte subscribes, given that there have already been cases of French fighters presumed dead reappearing.
She says Essid’s trial should lead to the first judicial recognition in France of the genocide committed against the Yazidis, despite the French jihadist’s absence and the fact that these women “were sometimes held captive by eight, nine, ten or fifteen men”. Essid’s trial represents the judgment of only one alleged perpetrator, but should make it possible to document the extent of abuses committed against the Yazidi community. This is “essential”, the lawyer concludes, “given the instability and risks of an Islamic State resurgence in Syria”.
