A court in Germany has convicted an Iraqi couple of enslaving two Yazidi girls in Iraq.

The Munich Higher Regional Court also found them guilty of membership of the Islamic State group (IS).

The man, named only as Twana H.S. in line with German privacy rules, was sentenced to life imprisonment on charges including genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, and severe sexual abuse of children.

His wife, Asia R. A., was handed a juvenile sentence of nine and a half years. The couple was arrested in Bavaria in 2024.

The Yazidis, a Kurdish-speaking minority, were persecuted by IS after the jihadist group seized large swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq beginning in 2014.

Thousands of men were killed and women and children were enslaved and raped when IS fighters stormed into the ancestral heartland of the Yazidis in northern Iraq.

Germany recognises these acts as genocide. The Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office accused the two defendants of having been part of this systematic campaign, “the Islamic State’s objective to destroy the Yazidi religion.”

Twana H.S. first came to Germany in the early 2000’s as an asylum seeker. He worked in Munich as a hairdresser and had a child. According to Der Spiegel magazine, he was denied asylum but was given permission to stay as the parent of German child.

After becoming radicalised at a Munich mosque, Der Spiegel says he return to Iraq in 2015.

Prosecutors say Twana H. S. and Asia R. A. were married there according to Islamic law and became members of Islamic State between October 2015 and December 2017.

Asia R. A. was under the age of 21 when the crimes were committed.

They said that in the autumn of 2015, Twana H. S. bought a five-year-old Yazidi girl as a slave at a bazaar in Mosul, at the request of his wife.

The couple bought a twelve-year-old Yazidi girl, in early October 2017.

Prosecutors said Twana H. S. “repeatedly raped both children.”

They said his wife “put make-up on one of the girls” and prepared the room for him.

The couple were accused of forcing them to do household work and childcare, and forbade them to practise their own religion.

The children were beaten, sometimes with solid objects.

On one occasion, Asia R. A. “scalded the younger girl’s hand with hot water,” prosecutors said.

During the trial, the court heard harrowing testimony from the eldest Yazidi girl, who described beatings, forced labour and repeated rapes, BR News reported.

The second girl is still missing, it said.

The pair stood trial in Germany because of the legal principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows prosecutions for alleged war crimes, including genocide, occurring overseas.

During the trial, Asia R.A , who is now separated from Twana H.S., apologised. In her final statement, she said “I’m sorry”.

Twana H.S. declined to speak in court.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband has urged the government to scale up efforts to return a jailed British couple from Iran to prevent another family being separated for years.

Craig and Lindsay Foreman were arrested by Iranian authorities in January while on a motorbike trip from Europe to Australia. They were accused of espionage, a charge which the couple and their family deny.

Richard Ratcliffe told the BBC the government should have learned lessons from his wife’s detention, urging it to take “serious measures”.

The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO) said it takes all “allegations of human rights violations, including that a detention may be arbitrary, very seriously”.

“The assistance we can provide depends on the individual circumstances of the case and the local conditions – the impact and influence we can have will not always be the same,” an FCDO spokesperson said.

But Mr Ratcliffe says the government needs to increase its transparency with the family about the strategies it’s employing to return the couple.

He said it should “stop pretending this is going to sort itself out, and take serious measures to get them home, rather than leave another family separated for years.”

British officials, negotiators, and decision-makers need to update their policy in dealing with state hostage-taking, he said.

“The current pretence is unsustainable, and seems to put all the burden and blame on the victims,” he told the BBC.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian national and charity project manager, had been visiting Iran with her daughter Gabriella when she was arrested in 2016.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard accused her of trying to overthrow the state, which she denied.

Her husband spearheaded a campaign for her release until she was returned after nearly six years.

One of the “deep frustrations” early on in Nazanin’s case was how slow the UK government moved, and “how quick they were to deflect and downplay what Nazanin was going through,” he said, adding that it took years for ministers to acknowledge Nazanin was being taken hostage.

“I always felt her suffering was made worse by the government’s pretence.”

“We did hope by telling our story that the government would learn lessons, and wouldn’t keep repeating these mistakes,” he said.

“But the more I hear about their approach to Craig and Lindsay’s case, the less it feels like any lessons have been learned.”

The Foremans’ family say they entered Iran with valid visas, a licensed guide and a pre-approved itinerary, as required under Tehran’s rules.

Their son, Joe Bennett, from Folkestone, Kent is now campaigning full time for their release. He has only spoken to his mother three times in the 11 months since her arrest.

Two weeks ago, he told the BBC the pair had embarked on a hunger strike in a “cry out for help” to push for better conditions, including more phone calls and to be able to visit her husband, who is being held in a separate cell.

Both are now eating again, although Mr Bennett had been told they were looking thin. They have not yet been able to visit one another.

“My mum and Craig are British citizens. They are living in horrific conditions, isolated, kept behind bars, stripped of their human dignity,” he said in a statement.

He added the family “shouldn’t have to fight this hard just to get the basic support”.

“We need the Government to show the same determination it eventually mustered for Nazanin—now, immediately, urgently, and not years from now.”

The couple, both in their early 50s from East Sussex, are being held in separate crowded cells in the notorious Evin prison in Tehran, where Nazanin was imprisoned.

They have appeared in court several times but have not been officially tried – or convicted.

Another detained Iranian-British national, Anoosheh Ashoori, was returned on the same flight as Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe in 2022 after being held for five years.

The story of her detention and the campaign to release her has been developed into a BBC drama Project 951.

In an interview with BBC Radio 4 for the series earlier this week, Mr Ratcliffe recalled the “disorientation” and “trauma” of his wife’s imprisonment.

The UK government advises against all travel to Iran because of a “significant risk” of arrest, and says having a British passport or connections to the UK “can be reason enough for the Iranian authorities to detain you”.