We shouldn’t forget the horrific crimes of Isis returnees

Summer 2015. A five-year-old girl is chained up and left outside in the desert sun in Fallujah, Iraq – a punishment for wetting the bed while feeling unwell. The little girl slowly died of thirst in temperatures exceeding 50 degrees Celsius. Condemned to the same inhumane punishment was the girl’s mother, made to endure the additional and unimaginable horror of helplessly watching the life drain from her daughter’s tiny body.

The mother and child were members of Iraq’s Yazidi religious minority. Their captors, members of Islamic State (IS), are said to be German and Iraqi. At the time, Islamic State recruits felt invincible. They taunted the West and ruled over civilians in their territory with cruelty and terror. Four years later, their ‘Caliphate’ had crumbled and the German jihadist, Jennifer W., was facing war crimes charges in her native Munich.

This case set an important precedent, opening the gates for a handful of other charges to be brought against German citizens.