UN team says it is almost ready to begin investigating ISIS crimes against Yazidis
A UN team authorised more than a year ago to investigate the massacre of the Yazidi minority and other atrocities by ISIS in Iraq will begin its work early next year.
The UN Security Council adopted a resolution in September last year to bring ISIS extremists responsible for war crimes to justice.
It is a cause championed by Nobel Peace Prize winner Nadia Murad and international human rights lawyer Amal Clooney.
The team, led by British lawyer Karim Ahmad Khan, was sent to Baghdad in October but has since concentrated on administrative and technical details to lay the groundwork for the investigation.
“The team now looks forward to continuing preparations in Iraq with a view to commencing investigative activities in early 2019,” Mr Ahmad Khan told the council in his first report.
The Iraqi government had resisted calls for the UN inquiry and Mr Ahmad Khan said much effort had gone into ensuring co-operation from Baghdad.
“The realisation of our investigative activities is dependent on securing the co-operation, support and trust of all elements of Iraqi society,” he said.
The UN has called the Yazidi massacre by ISIS possible genocide and UN rights investigators have documented horrific accounts of abuse suffered by women and girls.
Ms Murad is among thousands of Yazidi women who were taken hostage and held as sex slaves when ISIS fighters moved into Iraq’s Sinjar region in August 2014.
The investigators will gather evidence on crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide for Iraqi courts that will try ISIS militants, the UN resolution says.
More than 200 mass graves containing up to 12,000 bodies have been discovered in Iraq recently, providing evidence of war crimes by the extremists.
The US said it would provide $2 million (Dh7.3m) to support the investigative team.
After being awarded this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, Ms Murad said she wanted ISIS members to face trial in a courtroom.
“For me, justice doesn’t mean killing all of the Daesh members who committed these crimes against us,” she said in October.
“Justice for me is taking Daesh members to a court of law and seeing them in court admitting to the crimes they committed against Yazidis, and being punished for those crimes specifically.”