THE Sonia Ma woman who returned from Syria and was married to its emir Islamic stateis accused in France of crimes against humanity and genocide for allegedly enslaving a teenage Yazidi minority in Syria.
The young woman, who is now 25 years old, was only 16 when she was bought by Abdelnasser Benyousefalso known as “Abu Mutana”, head of IS’s external operations, who ordered the 2015 attack on the Hyper Cacher store in Paris.
That man, for whom an arrest warrant has been issued, according to a source with knowledge of the case, has been convicted in absentia in France of that attack.
As reported by the newspaper Le Parisien, the young woman Yezidi she presented herself in February to the Kurdish authorities in Arbil, Iraq, also before a French judge, and spoke of her abduction in 2014 from the Mount Sinjar area, where a large part of this minority lived.
As she complained, for more than a month in the spring of 2015, she lived in Raqqa, Syria, as a prisoner in the home of Sonia and her husband.
The 25-year-old said that she could not drink or eat, nor wash without Sonia’s permission. He also accused her of raping her twice and of knowing that her husband was raping her.
The young woman described Sonia as “dominant”, with “great influence” and pointed out that she seemed “satisfied to be in Daesh”, an Arabic acronym for IS.
The teenager eventually left the couple’s home about a month later to be sold again. The main cause of this development was Sonia’s jealousy.
“divine command”
Sonia was questioned on March 14 by the anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office and denied the charges, admitting only that her ex-husband raped the young woman “once”. The teenager “was free to leave her room, eat whatever she wanted, go to the bathroom when she needed to,” he claimed.
She also assured that she did not have a pistol in her possession, as the young Yezidi complained.
Sonia stated that her husband “didn’t ask my opinion”. “He told me that (the young Yazidi woman) will be, I don’t like that word, slave girl of him, that it was a right given to him and that I could not object, that it was a divine command.”
She pointed out that she did not like to give orders and that she did the household alone when her husband was away.
Initially, in 2022, a judge had accused Sonia of complicity, but now she is considered the main suspect for acts of “genocide” and “crimes against humanity”.
The case raises many challenges as a case will be tried in France for war crimes committed in Syria.
Sonia has been “dissolved by these charges”, assured her lawyer Nabil Budi. He emphasized that his client has truly repented, as “proven by her statements in various terrorism trials”.
If the judge ultimately requests a trial against Sonia, it will be “the first time that a woman who has been repatriated (from Syria) is tried for crimes against humanity,” pointed out Romain Ruiz, Yezidi’s lawyer.
Source: APE-MPE, File photo
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