Sweden charges woman with genocide, crimes against humanity in Syria

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Swedish prosecutors charged a woman on Thursday with crimes against humanity for acts in Syria against women and children of the Yazidi religious minority in 2014-2016, the first time the Nordic country has brought this charge.

The woman, a 52-year old Swedish citizen identified in the court indictment as Lina Ishaq, also faces charges of genocide and war crimes - or as an accessory to them - between 2014 and 2016, they said.

Prosecutors said she had travelled to Syria to help establish the rule there of Islamic State (IS), a militant Islamist group that seized large swathes of Syria and Iraq in 2014 before eventually being defeated.

Prosecutor Reena Devgun said in a statement the woman was suspected of "buying or receiving civilian women and children belonging to the Yazidi minority in her residence in Raqqa in Syria", and treating them as slaves.

"Furthermore, they were subjected to severe suffering, slavery or other inhumane treatment. In violation of international law they were deprived of liberty in the woman's home and prevented from leaving," Devgun said.

The accused, who in 2020 returned to Sweden where she is currently serving time in prison for other offences in Syria, denies the new charges, her lawyer Mikael Westerlund said.

Under Swedish law, courts can try people for crimes against international law committed abroad.

The prosecution agency said crimes against humanity can include murder, rape, torture and forced labour if they are part of a widespread or systematic attack against a group of civilians.

In 2022, a Swedish court found the same woman guilty of war crimes and violation of international law for failing to prevent her 12-year-old son from becoming a child soldier in the northern Syrian city of Raqqa when it was under IS rule.

(Reporting by Isabelle Yr Carlsson and Anna Ringstrom; Editing by Gareth Jones)