Lina Ishaq
Lina Laina[1][2] Ishaq (b. 1972[3]) is an Iraqi Arab convert to Islam, who was convicted in 2025 of genocide, enslavement, sentenced to 12 years in prison after keeping Yazidi women and children as slaves at her home in Syria.
Born to a Christian Arab family, emigrated from Iraq[3] to Sweden, but converted to Islam after meeting her late husband and Islamist Jiro Mehho, with whom she had six children, in the 1990s.
In 2013, she travelled to Syria with her children. After Mehho died in August 2013, she moved to Raqqa in 2014 and remarried.
At the time of her conviction in Feb/2025, she was "already serving jail sentences for taking her two year-old son to Syria and 'failing to prevent' IS from using her 12-year-old son as a child soldier. He died in 2017, aged 16."[4]
Nine people, including six children, were held captive in Ishaq's home, and according to the prosecutor, were treated as slaves, tortured, forced to work and taught Islam. Coercion was also allegedly used when they occasionally watched propaganda films in which IS executes people.[5]
The Yazidi victims were among thousands of women taken captive, while their male relatives were executed.[6][7] What is known as the Yazidi genocide.
After about five months of captivity, they arrived at Ishaq’s home in Raqqa, Syria. “The woman kept them imprisoned and treated them as her property by holding them as slaves for a period of, in most cases, five months,” the court said. Their movement was restricted, they were made to perform chores and some were photographed in preparation to be transferred to other people as slaves. “Given the fact that she participated in the onward transfer of the injured parties, she is also responsible for enabling their continued imprisonment and enslavement,” the court statement added. Ishaq also forced the Yazidis, who practice their own religion, to “become practising Muslims” by making them recite Koran verses and pray four or five times a day. She called them by “demeaning invectives such as ‘infidels’ or ‘slaves’,” the statement said. The court stressed “that the comprehensive system of enslavement” was one of “the crucial elements” implemented by IS in “the perpetration of the genocide, the crimes against humanity and gross war crimes that the Yazidi population was subjected to”.
As such, the court said, “the woman shared the IS intent to destroy a religious group”.
Former Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs Ann Linde called it a historic verdict in a post on X, hailing the brave Yezidi women who came to Sweden to testify against the ISIS member, who returned to Sweden in 2020.[8]
See also
References
- ↑ (September 19, 2024). Olsen, Jan M. Sweden charges a woman with war crimes for allegedly torturing Yazidi women and children in Syria. The Washington Times.
- ↑
Swedish authorities have taken an important step in the pursuit of justice for the crimes committed by ISIL by charging Lina Laina Ishaq, a 52-year-old Swedish citizen with genocide, crimes against humanity, and serious war crimes against Yazidi women and children in Syria.
— Yazda (@YazdaOrg) September 30, 2024. - ↑ 3.0 3.1 (February 11, 2025). Fotbollstjejen från Halmstad dömd för folkmord – vem är IS-kvinnan Lina Ishaq?. svt.se.
“ Lina Ishaq, born in 1972, came to Sweden as a child from Iraq and grew up in Halmstad. The family is Christian, but she herself converted to Islam. She was radicalized along with others in Halmstad and joined the terrorist movement Islamic State, IS, with her five children.
After returning to Sweden, she has been convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and aggravated war crimes, among other things. Her husband and two of her sons have died in IS battles in Syria.
” - ↑ (February 11, 2025). Webster, Eve. Swedish woman convicted of genocide for IS crimes against Yazidis. BBC News.
- ↑ October 7, 2024). Cantwell, Oisín. Blir Lina Ishaq den första som döms för brott mot mänskligheten?.
- ↑ (February 11, 2025). Swedish woman jailed for keeping Yazidi slaves in Syria. AFP.
- ↑ (February 11, 2025). Swedish woman convicted on genocide charges. The Telegraph.
- ↑ (February 12, 2025). van Wilgenburg, Wladimir. Yezidis Welcome Sweden’s Conviction of ISIS Member. Kurdistan Chronicle.
Historic verdict today: Stockholm District Court has convicted a 52-year-old woman of genocide, crimes against humanity and serious war crimes committed in Raqqa, Syria. Brave Yezidi women came to Sweden and testified.
— Ann Linde (@AnnLinde).
