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Evidence collected in Iraq strengthens preliminary findings that Islamic
State extremists committed crimes against humanity and war crimes against the
Christian community after it seized about a third of the country in 2014, a
U.N. investigative team said in a report circulated Thursday.
The report to the U.N. Security Council said crimes included forcibly
transferring and persecuting Christians, seizing their property, engaging in
sexual violence, enslavement and other "inhumane acts," such as
forced conversions and destruction of cultural and religious sites.
In addition, the team said it has identified leaders and prominent
members of the Islamic State extremist group who participated in the attack and
takeover of three predominantly Christian towns in the Nineveh plains north of
Iraq's second largest city, Mosul, in July and August 2014 -- Hamdaniyah,
Karamlays and Bartella. It also started collecting evidence on crimes committed
against the Christian community in Mosul.
Islamic State fighters seized Iraqi cities and declared a self-styled
caliphate in a large swath of territory in Syria and Iraq in 2014. The group
was formally declared defeated in Iraq in 2017 following a three-year bloody
battle that left tens of thousands dead and cities in ruins, but its sleeper
cells continue to stage attacks in different parts of Iraq.
The 26-page report was submitted by the U.N. Investigative Team to
Promote Accountability for Crimes committed by the Islamic State group, also
known as IS, ISIL and Daesh.
The team updated its investigations into the extremists' development and
use of chemical and biological weapons, attacks on the Yazidi and Sunni
communities, the mass execution of prisoners and detainees at Badush prison
near Mosul in June 2014, and crimes in and around Tikrit.
In December 2021, the head of the U.N. team, Christian Ritscher, told
the Security Council that Islamic State extremists committed crimes against
humanity and war crimes at the prison in Badush.
In May 2021, Ritscher's predecessor, Karim Khan, told the council that
investigators had found "clear and compelling evidence" Islamic State
extremists committed genocide against the Yazidi minority in 2014. He also said
the militant group successfully developed chemical weapons and used mustard gas.
The new report said Ritscher's team found evidence of payments to the
families of Islamic State members killed deploying chemical weapons and records
of payments for training senior operatives on the use of chemical weapons and
devices to disperse such weapons.
The team said it is still assessing evidence of the use of agents.
"Evidence suggests that ISIL
manufactured and produced chemical rockets and mortars, chemical ammunition for
rocket-propelled grenades, chemical warheads and improvised explosive
devices," the report said. "Furthermore, the ISIL program involved
the development, testing, weaponizations and deployment of a range of agents,
including aluminum phosphide, chlorine, clostridium botulinum, cyanide,
nicotine, ricin, and thallium sulphate."
As for the destruction of cultural and religious sites by Islamic State
fighters, the team said it expanded its investigations into different Iraqi
communities and focused on several areas in Nineveh and Mosul.
This has led to a preliminary inventory of over 150 Kaka'i, Shabak and
Shia Turkmen sites "suspected of having been destroyed by ISIL, along with
enforced displacements, disappearances and sometimes killings of members of
those communities," the team said. It also identified places of worship and
heritage sites in Tikrit that were severely damaged or destroyed by ISIL.
"The evidence obtained thus far
shows that religious and cultural sites were either intentionally destroyed or
taken over and occupied by ISIL, sometimes for military purposes, which
resulted in their severe damage or destruction," it said. "While the
motives and methods adopted by ISIL are still being reviewed, it appears that
explosives and heavy equipment were used to destroy many of the sites."
With regard to attacks on the Yazidi community in Sinjar, the team said
it has expanded the list of identified perpetrators to currently include the
names of 2,181 individuals, including 156 foreign fighters.
"In-depth case files have been
developed in relation to 30 primary persons of interest," it said.
The team said it has expanded its investigation into crimes by Islamic
State against the Sunni community in Anbar, citing progress in its probe of the
execution of hundreds of members of the Albu Nimr tribe between 2014 and 2016.
The U.N. investigation of the mass execution of detainees at Badush
prison on June 10-11, 2014, continues, the team said, including interviews with
additional witnesses and survivors.
This yielded "new and corroborative evidence on the circumstances
under which approximately 1,000 predominantly Shia prisoners were targeted and
executed by ISIL inside the prison and in various other locations," it
said.
The team said it has also continued investigating crimes against
civilians in Tikrit and Alam in 2014 and 2015, and is gathering further
evidence on the mass killing of unarmed military cadets and personnel from the
Tikrit Air Academy in June 2014.
In the coming months, the investigators said they plan to focus on
transitioning from investigations to building cases and sharing information
with Iraq to spur prosecutions
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