A former Islamic State militant was convicted of genocide against the Yazidi people by a court in Germany on Tuesday.

Taha al-Jumailly was sentenced to life in prison for crimes including the murder of a Yazidi child he chained in the sun to die of thirst.

The 29-year-old Iraqi national is the first person to be convicted of genocide anywhere in the world over IS’s systematic killing campaign against the Yazidis.

The court in Frankfurt heard how he kept a five-year-old Yazidi girl as a slave and chained her outside in temperatures of over 50C as punishment for wetting the bed.

The judge ruled that the enslavement and killing of the girl amounted to genocide as part of a systematic campaign by IS to wipe out the Yazidi faith.

‘This is the moment Yazidis have been waiting for’

“This is the moment Yazidis have been waiting for,” said Amal Clooney, the human rights lawyer, who represented the murdered child’s mother. 

“To finally hear a judge, after seven years, declare that what they suffered was genocide. To watch a man face justice for killing a Yazidi girl because she was Yazidi. There is no more denying it. IS is guilty of genocide.”

Nadia Murad, a survivor of the genocide and Nobel laureate, said: “This verdict is a win for survivors of genocide, survivors of sexual violence, and the entire Yazidi community.”

She added: “Thank you to Germany for today’s historic conviction.”

Al-Jumailly was extradited to Germany after being held as a migrant in Greece. He was tried by a German court under the principle of universal jurisdiction, which holds that war crimes and crimes against humanity can be prosecuted anywhere in the world regardless of where they were committed.