Delivering his first briefing to ambassadors, Special Adviser Christian Ritscher said evidence collected so far is capable of supporting trials. “Through our effective engagement with survivors and witnesses, and by exploiting the extensive digital fingerprints left behind by its members in battlefield evidence, we can already tie the actions of individuals to the commission of these crimes”, he said.
Early in February 2020, a senior UN official told the Security Council that despite the loss of its last stronghold in Syria and the death of its leader, ISIL “remains at the centre of the transnational terrorism threat.”
Presenting a UN report on ISIL then, Head of the UN Office of Counter-Terrorism, Vladimir Voronkov, urged the international community to remain united in fighting the group’s reach, which extends to Africa, Europe and Asia.
“ISIL has continued to seek resurgence and global relevance online and offline, aspiring to re-establish its capacity for complex international operations. ISIL’s regional affiliates continue pursuing a strategy of entrenchment in conflict zones by exploiting local grievances”, he said.
Thousands of foreigners travelled to Syria and Iraq to support ISIL, also known as Daesh, and it’s estimated that up to 27,000 are still alive. They will continue to pose threats in the short and long term, Voronkov reported. For example, European countries are concerned over the anticipated release this year of some 1,000 terrorism-related convicts, some of whom include returned former fighters.
“ISIL lost its last stronghold in the Syrian Arab Republic in March 2019 and has seen a change in leadership after the death of al- Baghdadi in October, but this report shows that the group remains at the centre of the transnational terrorism threat. We must stay vigilant and united in confronting this scourge.”
The Council also heard from a civil society representative, Mona Freij, who fled the Syrian city of Raqqa after ISIL fighters “armed to the teeth” stormed her house in September 2014. She escaped after a neighbour diverted the fighters, but her family members were subsequently arrested, tortured and left traumatized.
Ms. Freij returned to Raqqa in 2017 after the “Daesh nightmare” had ended. “Women were deprived of education and they were in a very difficult situation”, she recalled, pointing out, “I found orphaned children…and they told me that they had been forced to join Daesh, and the women had to bear children by the fighters. If they refused the sexual advances of the fighters, they were punished. They could not put an end to their pregnancies. They were hostages who had to obey the orders of monsters. Even today, they have difficulty in proving who the fathers of the children are.”
Voronkov told the Council that the most pressing concern now is the situation of more than 100,000 people associated with ISIL, mainly women and children, currently in detention and displacement camps.
Executive Director, Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate, Michele Coninsx, reported that they are living in appalling conditions, leaving them open to further radicalisation. She welcomed countries’ efforts to repatriate these women and children, and called on other nations to follow suit.
“ISIL has destroyed entire communities, uprooted families and brainwashed thousands by spreading its toxic and misguided ideology. Today the international community has an opportunity to prosecute the perpetrators, rehabilitate the victims and facilitate reconstruction and community development in places destroyed by ISIL violence”, she said.
“The repatriation of women and children will accelerate that process, and the prosecution of ISIL fighters and their affiliates, in accordance with international human rights will help bring closure to the victims. This is one of the defining counter-terrorism challenges of our time. Inaction now will only make our future counter-terrorism efforts harder.”
A new landscape
In the meantime, the team, known as UNITAD, works to secure evidence of ISIL’s crimes against various Iraqi communities, which include mass executions and use of chemical and biological weapons, committed during its reign of terror from June 2014 to December 2017.
Ritscher told the Council, “knowing from experience the challenges national authorities face in pursuing justice for these crimes, I believe we now stand at a turning point, a moment of perhaps unexpected hope. We can now envision a new landscape, in which those who believed themselves to be out of reach of justice are held accountable in a court of law.”
Ritscher reported on recent activities carried out by UNITAD and Iraqi authorities to exhume bodies from a mass grave outside the city of Mosul, located in the north of the country. The victims were executed by ISIL at Badush Central Prison in June 2014. They were separated based on their religion and at least a thousand predominantly Shia prisoners were killed.
Analysis of digital, documentary, testimonial and forensic evidence, including internal ISIL documents, has led to the identification of several individual ISIL members responsible for these crimes. Having finalised the initial case brief, Ritscher said the conclusion is these actions constitute crimes against humanity and war crimes.
The evidence from the Badush Prison attacks further underlines the detailed planning undertaken by ISIL in carrying out atrocities.
Chemical weapons programme
This also applies to the group’s development and use of chemical and biological weapons which Ritscher said was “not an opportunist exploitation of fortunate circumstances” but rather “a strategic priority implemented in line with a long-term vision.”
“Our evidence shows that ISIL clearly identified and then seized chemical weapon production factories and other sources of precursor material, while also overtaking the University of Mosul Campus as a hub for research and development”, he said.
“Small teams of qualified technical and scientific experts, some brought in from abroad, worked to adapt and enhance the programme.” The arrival of new expertise also led to the chemical weapons programme becoming more diversified and sophisticated. More than 3,000 victims have been identified to date.
Furthermore, analysis of detailed records left behind by ISIL has led to the identification of those members allegedly responsible for leading the development of the programme, and implementing major attacks.
“I can inform the Council today that in my next briefing I will present the results of a structural case-brief detailing our findings in relation to ISIL’s use of chemical weapons including legal characterization of the crimes committed in its implementation”, said Ritscher.
It is also essential that those who financially supported and profited from ISIL crimes are brought to justice, he added, and investigations have uncovered the inner workings of the group’s central treasury.
“We have identified a network of senior ISIL leadership that also acted as trusted financiers, diverting wealth that ISIL gained through pillage, theft of property from targeted communities and the imposition of a systematic and exploitative taxation system imposed on those living under ISIL control”, said Ritscher.
“This work has underlined the extensive financial exploitation by ISIL of the most vulnerable communities of Iraq for the personal benefit and profit of its most senior members.”
From impunity to justice
Ritscher highlighted the opportunity to “turn the tide from impunity to justice” through maintaining international commitment and unity. He pointed to a landmark conviction in Germany this week, where an ISIL member was prosecuted for the crime of genocide in a case involving a young girl from Iraq’s Yazidi community.
“We now have the chance, collectively, to make such prosecutions the norm, not a celebrated exception”, he told the Security Council.
