Inside the Twana H.S. and Asia R.A. Trial #14: Another Survivor of ISIS
TRIAL OF TWANA H.S. AND ASIA R.A.
Higher Regional Court – Munich, Germany
Trial Monitoring Summary #14
Hearing Date: October 2 & 8, 2025
CAUTION: Some testimony may include graphic descriptions of torture, rape or other violent acts.
Note that this summary is not a verbatim transcript of the trial; it is merely an unofficial summary of the proceedings.
Throughout this summary, [information located in brackets are notes from our trial monitor] and “information placed in quotes are statements made by the witness, judges or counsel.” The names and identifying information of witnesses have been redacted.
[Note: SJAC provides a summary of the proceedings while redacting certain details to protect witness privacy and to preserve the integrity of the trial.]
SJAC’s 14th trial monitoring report details day 26 and 27 of the trial of Twana H.S. and Asia R.A. in Munich, Germany. On this trial day, the Court heard F32, a Yazidi woman who met the Accused and P1 in Bawizah, Mosul, where she heard Asia R.A. claim that it was religiously righteous to hold Sabayas.
On the second day this week, the Court first asked Twana H.S. why he had written on the walls of the holding cell he had been placed in. Twana H.S. denied writing on the wall, claiming it had been someone else. After this, F32 answered the remaining questions of the Defense.
Day 26 – October 2, 2025
On this trial day, the Court heard [redacted name], F32, who identified the Accused as Abu and Um Abdullah or Asia. F32 reported meeting the Accused while she was enslaved by ISIS. She was with the family that enslaved her at a meeting of several ISIS families. This is where Asia R.A. proclaimed to the other ISIS women that having Sabayas is religiously righteous. When she saw Twana H.S., he was carrying a weapon. F32 also met P1 there and talked to her. P1 told F32 her name and that she was with the Accused. She also told F32 that she did the housework for Asia R.A.
F32 then spoke about [redacted name], F42, which she recalled being called by the title “Mulla.”
F32 had been shown pictures of the Accused in her interview with UNITAD two years ago. When F32 said that she could not remember the people in the pictures, the Court proposed a break.
***
[22-minutes-break]
F32 was then asked about seeing Twana H.S., to which F32 reported seeing him through a window, as the men had gathered outside in a yard and the women inside in a room. The family F32 had been placed with was [redacted name], F72 and [redacted name], F73, who were from [redacted location] and knew the Accused before this meeting as well.
Unprompted, after a short note from her legal counsel [redacted name], F40, F32 told the Court that Twana H.S. had raped P1 and that P1 had to do the housework for Asia R.A. The Court subsequently read her a paragraph from her statement with UNITAD in which F32 had said that she had not seen a Sabaya with Twana H.S. F32 answered that she had not seen P2, but had seen P1. F32 then reported that she had seen Asia R.A. with an explosive belt, which most of the wives of ISIS members would wear constantly.
A month later, the families met again, though F32 could not remember much of this meeting. P1 was not at this meeting, but Asia R.A. was carrying a weapon at this meeting.
The Court then asked F32 if she could remember anything else about meeting P1, but F32 could only repeat what she had already told the Court, though she added that P1 did not have to be veiled like F32 had to be. F32 summarized that she had seen Asia R.A. with an explosive belt at the first meeting and a firearm at the second meeting. Twana H.S. had had a firearm both times and a pistol at the second meeting.
***
[79-minutes-break]
***
After the break, the Court asked F32 if she had talked about the content of the proceedings with any of the women she had met while in ISIS custody. F32 answered that she had spoken with [redacted name], F33 about testifying in Court, but they did not speak about the contents of her testimony. They also asked if she had talked to anyone at UNITAD about her testimony or the contents of that testimony, which F32 denied. She then told the Court that [redacted name], F29, [redacted name], F31, and [redacted name], F30 had told her about the Accused having another Sabaya called [redacted name].
When asked when she had remembered meeting P1, F32 answered that she had tried to think hard for the Court, but that she had not told everything at that interview with UNITAD as it had taken three days and she had just wanted it to end.
The Court then turned to F32’s relationship with [redacted name], W7. F32 had met W7 before she gave her statement to UNITAD, and W7 had told her that she would be questioned by UNITAD and when. The Court then read her witness statement from the UNITAD interview again and asked her why she had not told UNITAD about P1. F32 reiterated that she had not told UNITAD everything, as they questioned her about countless things over three days and she had just wanted it to end.
F32 then relayed her own story, telling the Court that in August 2014, ISIS came to her home, murdered her male relatives, and took all the women and girls she knew. The girls were then taken by different men, and F32 was sold to different men over a span of 2 months until she ended up with F72. She cared for the children and was raped continuously until they sold her to the man she was rescued from at last.
***
[14-minutes-break]
***
The Court showed F32 various pictures, in which she could identify F29 and F33, but pictures that had previously been identified as P1, she could not put a name to.
The Federal Prosecutor's Office then asked her some questions about her conversation with P1, such as if they were standing or sitting, but F32 could not remember.
Defense Counsel for Twana H.S., Peter Ewald, first asked the witness some questions about the meeting, and F32 reiterated what she had told the Court. The Defense focused on asking F32 how she had seen Twana H.S. through the kitchen window and who had told her that it was Twana H.S., which F32 could not remember exactly.
The Defense Counsel then asked her about her conversation with P1, in which F32 repeated what she had told the Court beforehand. A short discussion about the questions ensued, in which Defense Counsel for Asia R.A. Shervin Ameri asked the Court that discussions between the Defense Teams and the Court should not be interpreted to the witness, which the Court replied was already the practice.
When asked if Twana H.S. and Asia R.A. had spoken German with each other, F32 answered that she only heard Asia R.A. speak Sorani. She did, however, hear Twana H.S. speak in a language that was not Arabic nor Kurdish, therefore she thought it was German, as F72 had told her Twana H.S. spoke German.
Defense Counsel Ewald then read a short paragraph from the interview in which F32 had not known who the alias “Abu Abdullah al Almani” had belonged to. The Court said that the Defense had to read the whole paragraph and not just a short excerpt, as the context mattered. In the end, Mr. Ewald asked F32 why she had remembered “Abu Abdullah al Kurdi” but could not remember that “Abu Abdullah al Almani” was the same person. F32 replied that as a lot of time had passed, she had not been so fast in remembering.
The proceedings were adjourned at 3:12PM.
The next trial day will be on October 8, 2025, at 9:30AM.
Day 27 – October 8, 2025
In the second session this week, the Court first questioned Twana H.S. on having written on the wall of his holding cell in the court building. Twana H.S. explained that as the sentence had been written in Arabic, he could not have been the one to write it, as he cannot write in Arabic.
The Court then summoned F32 again, and Defense Counsel Ewald asked F32 if “Abu Abdullah al Almani” and “Abu Abdullah al Kurdi” were two different people, which F32 affirmed. When questioned who had told her that Twana H.S. had been in Germany, the witness said she did not remember. The Defense Counsel then repeatedly asked why F32 had stated in her statement with UNITAD that she had heard Twana H.S. and Asia R.A. speak in German, when she could not remember such a thing today. Defense Counsel Ewald then asked a myriad of questions which were all rejected by the Court, as the witness had already answered them the day prior. His Co-Counsel, Martin Kämpf, jumped in, telling the Court that they had to give Mr. Ewald at least some leeway. When Mr. Ewald asked the next question, the Presiding Judge rejected this question as well, as it made a false assumption about the witness. Though the Court then let Ewald ask the questions to the witness, a majority of them had already been answered the day before, and the Court took to reading out the answers that had been given the day prior.
Defense Counsel for Twana H.S. Martin Kämpf then asked F32 about her relationship with [redacted name], W7. F32 had met W7 when she had been freed from ISIS and had stayed in contact contact until the present. The two had met countless times outside of W7’s work with UNITAD, where F32 had also met friends of W7. When Mr. Kämpf asked F32 how long the last conversation between her and W7 had been, a short discussion ensued between the private interpreter for F32, [redacted name], F41, and Mr. Kämpf. The Presiding Judge told the witness to answer the question, to which Mr. Kämpf answered that he was not happy with the end of this discussion. F32’s legal counsel, [redacted name], F40, answered that the witness would like to answer the question. Mr. Kämpf then broke into a rant, admonishing F40 for her constant interruptions and reminding her what her tasks were in this court room. F40 calmly replied that she knew her tasks very well and that telling the Counsel her client would like to answer the question was very much one of those tasks. The Presiding Judge then asked the witness to answer the question. F32 told the room that her last conversation with W7 had lasted about an hour.
F32 then described the last meeting in person with W7 for Mr. Kämpf, saying they had met with some friends of W7. When asked if those were her “countrymen,” [redacted name], C3, asked him to specify what “countrymen” meant. Mr. Kämpf replied “Yazidis.” F32 affirmed that the people present had been Yazidi. Mr. Kämpf then asked if those people had journeyed there with W7, which confused the parties present, so he asked F32 where W7 was living. The Presiding Judge immediately told Mr. Kämpf that W7’s place of residence would not be a topic discussed in the proceedings. A discussion ensued on the specificity and if Kämpf could ask about the continent on which W7 was living. The Presiding Judge told the room at large that W7 is part of the German witness protection program, and another Judge asked the Defense Counsel what exactly he wanted to know. Mr. Kämpf replied that he understood that the Court would be interested in that. After some back and forth, the witness answered the question by testifying that the last meeting had happened in Australia. The Counsel divulged that he wanted to know if some of those meetings had happened after F32 had given her statement to UNITAD. One of the Judges then implied that W7 had stayed in Australia even after that interview. After some back and forth, F32 told the Counsel that her last meeting with W7 had been in 2023 in Australia and that the two were friends.
***
[21-minutes-break]
***
After the break, Phillip Jansohn, Defense Counsel for Asia R.A., asked the witness how she knew Asia R.A. was called Asia, to which F32 replied that she had been told so in Mosul.
Then, Shervin Ameri, Defense Counsel for Asia R.A., asked F32 about her friendship with W7, to which F32 reiterated that they had been friends since 2017 and that they had not spoken about the contents of her testimony. F32 had spoken with W7 about being in Germany just this week, and he had told her to enjoy her stay. When asked if she was still part of her family even after being raped by ISIS members, F32 answered yes, and if anything, she had become more precious to them. When asked if she had talked about P1 with anyone before her testimony in Court, F32 answered that she had not. When asked about her memory, F32 told Mr. Ameri that when she remembers something about her time with ISIS, she tries to think of something else.
Prompted, F32 reported that F73 had also worn an explosives belt regularly and had had a weapon which she kept in a wooden box. F73 had told F32 that all ISIS women wore a belt like this. F32 had slept in a room by herself.
When asked which word had been used to describe P1 being raped, F32 replied with “ightiṣāb.” When asked why she believed this so readily, F32 answered that she believes everything bad of ISIS.
The proceedings were adjourned at 12:34 PM.
The next trial day will be on October 13, 2025, at 10:00 AM.
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