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Between April 2012 and January 2013, the armed Islamist groups Ansar Dine and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) took control of Timbuktu, Mali. The current case concerns the acts committed by Mr. Al Hassan who was the chief of the Islamic Police and was involved in the Islamic Court’s work. At the time that Mr. Al Hassan was the Chief of the Islamic Police, he enforced discriminatory laws and committed religious persecution, among other crimes. Through his role in the Islamic Court, Mr. Al Hassan took part in the transfer of accused persons, and implemented the judgments and sentences handed down by the Islamic Court. 

On 26 June 2024, the ICC convicted Mr. Al Hassan of several of the charges brought against him of war crimes and crimes against humanity. During the sentencing judgement, the Court considered the mitigating circumstances of the minor actions taken by Mr. Al Hassan to assist the civilian population in 2012-2013 and his cooperation with the Prosecution at the investigation stage. Mr. Al Hassan was sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment on 20 November 2024. The time which Mr. Al Hassan had spent in detention from 28 March 2018 to 20 November 2024, was deducted from his sentence. As such, Mr. Al Hassan will be serving his sentence for committing the war crimes of torture, cruel treatment, outrages upon personal dignity, sentencing without due process, and mutilation, as well as the crimes against humanity of torture, persecution, and other inhumane acts.

The Stockholm District Court found L. I. guilty for her involvement in IS’ campaign against the Yazidi community. After establishing that IS’ August 2014 Sinjar offensive and the subsequent pattern of killings, enslavement, rape, forced transfer of children, and destruction of religious sites amounted to genocide, crimes against humanity, and serious war crimes, the court examined L. I.’s individual accountability.

The nine victims in the case—three women and six children—were all Yazidis captured during the Sinjar attack after their male relatives were executed or went missing. They were moved through various IS collection points and bases in Iraq and Syria, where they endured severe abuse and were traded as slaves. Ultimately, all nine victims came under L. I.’s control at her residence in Raqqa.

The court found that L. I. knowingly accepted these enslaved Yazidis into her home, treated them as her property, and kept them in captivity. She controlled their movement, forced household chores, restricted their food, and physically assaulted at least one woman and one child. She compelled the women and older children to attend Qur’an lessons, pray multiple times daily, and banned the use of the Kurmanji language. She also prohibited Yazidi religious and cultural practices and forced women and girls to wear religiously prescribed clothing. Repeatedly, she called them “infidels” and “slaves” and, in some cases, played IS execution videos to threaten them. L. I. also arranged staged photographs of the victims for sale within IS’ slavery network and helped transfer two family groups to other IS members, knowing they would face further rape, suffering, and separation.

The court concluded that these actions, carried out with IS’ genocidal intent, constituted genocide, crimes against humanity, and serious war crimes. It sentenced her to 12 years in prison and awarded 150,00 SEK in moral damages to each surviving victim.