Inside the Twana H.S. and Asia R.A. Trial #21: Genuine Remorse?
TRIAL OF TWANA H.S. AND ASIA R.A.
Higher Regional Court – Munich, Germany
Trial Monitoring Summary #21
Hearing Date: January 12 & 13, 2026
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 21st trial monitoring report details days 40 and 41 of the trial of Twana H.S. and Asia R.A. in Munich, Germany. On the first trial day of the week, the Court heard the last part of the testimony of Plaintiff, P2, mostly in response to questions of the Defense. In the context of the Defense’s comparisons of UNITAD interview transcript excerpts with P2’stestimony from the prior hearing days, today, the Plaintiff mainly testified on the timeline of the events related to the “sexual abuse” and particular aspects of her life under the Accused. When the Plaintiff was dismissed, and about to leave the room, the Accused Asia R.A. directly asked P2 for forgiveness.
On the second trial day of the week, the Court heard P2’s sister, F127, as a witness. Although she was also held captive by ISIS, F127’s testimony mainly focused on P2’s former and current psychological state and their life in a [redacted information] after liberation. In the context of the questioning by the Defense, F127 revealed P2’s and her current place of residence.
Day 40 – January 12, 2026
On this trial day, the Court resumed and concluded the testimony of Plaintiff [redacted name], P2, who testified over five separate trial days, of which four were completed in December [for the details of P2’s testimony, see Trial Reports #19 and 20]. Once again, the Plaintiff was represented by two Plaintiff Counsels as well as her own interpreter, [redacted name], F41, while Court interpreter [redacted name], C3, interpreted the testimony from Kurmanji.
Since only the Court questioned the Plaintiff during all the four previous hearing days, this trial day was dedicated to the questioning by the Defense. The Defense Team of Twana H.S. started by asking the Plaintiff about various central dates, specifically about the year under the Accused, the day P2’s family got captured by ISIS, and the day of her liberation. While P2 was able to recall the specific date of her ISIS abduction, namely [redacted time], and the date of her liberation, namely [redacted time], she did not remember the year during which she lived under the Accused and only responded with “probably [redacted time].” The Defense was not satisfied with the Plaintiff’s response and started questioning P2’s sources of information regarding all these dates, which the Presiding Judge quickly shut down as irrelevant. Still, Twana H.S.’s Defense started to read out from various paragraphs of the UNITAD interview transcript that allegedly indicated completely different dates. After a lengthy discussion, the Court revealed that the Defense mixed up the UNITAD interview transcripts of a range of other Yazidi witnesses with the one of P2 and commented this as the Defense’s use of “wrong facts”.
In response to further questioning by the Defense, P2 testified that Abu Abdallah [Twana H.S.] received money from ISIS “because [she] knows that all ISIS members received money,” but further specified to have never seen this practice and to not know where it specifically came from. Again, surrounding the question of when Abu Abdallah received the money each month, the Defense of Twana H.S. repeated reading out UNITAD interview transcript paragraphs that did not belong to P2’s interview or were marked as mistranslated by the Court, which brought confusion to the courtroom. Subsequently, every single question by Twana H.S.’s Defense began with a reading of a UNITAD interview transcript excerpt, compared with the Plaintiff’s testimony from the December trial days, which P2 then had to confirm. She specified that only Abu Abdallah and not Um Abdallah [Asia R.A.] spoke German, that Um Abdallah had told her that Abu Abdallah could speak German, that she had witnessed Abu Abdallah having been addressed as Abu Abdallah “al Almani,” that P2 knew that he was a “Sorani-Kurd” and not “an Arab,” but did not know for a fact that he was German. Further, P2 confirmed that Abu Abdallah occasionally wore an explosive belt around his belly when he left his house, but she never saw him actually putting the belt on.
During each of the questions, the Defense of Twana H.S. took considerable time re-citing P2’s previous testimony, which led to questions that neither the Plaintiff, nor the Court directly understood. While the Presiding Judge tried to give the Defense the time they needed to finalize their questioning strategy, the rest of the Judges continuously warned the Presiding Judge not to allow such a strategy and to be more careful with repeating questions by the Defense. This became especially noticeable when the Defense once again asked about the exact timeline of the “sexual abuse” events that P2 had to endure under the Accused. After a lengthy and heated discussion among the Judges, they concluded that the order of events had been sufficiently discussed on trial days 38 and 39 [see Trial Report #20]. This discussion, in which the Defense of Twana H.S. and the Plaintiff Counsel were also involved, took place in open court for around 15 minutes, with the Plaintiff still present. Eventually, the Court decided to interrupt for a break.
***
[20-minutes-break]
***
After the break, the Presiding Judge announced to ask the Plaintiff about the correct order of “sexual abuse” in the Accused’ house a final time. Although P2 first did not understand this question, she then testified that in total, she had to experience three instances of “sexual abuse”, of which the last one was the “rape” in the room upstairs, and the first two ones took place when she was forced to “sleep with” Abu Abdallah. The very first instance of “sexual abuse” occurred, according to the Plaintiff, right after she was hit on her soles with a stick by Abu Abdallah. It remained unclear to the Court, however, when [redacted name], P1, was involved, as P2 first testified that Abu Abdallah had just abused P1 before he wanted to “sleep with” P2, and then mentioned that P1 was with Abu Abdallah before both “sexual abuse” instances with P2 took place. The Plaintiff concluded that she had seen P1 in the room “at least once” right before she was “abused” by Abu Abdallah.
Then, the Defense of Twana H.S. inquired on the exact order of the pictures of assumed ISIS members that the Plaintiff was shown during her UNITAD interview. Although the Defense asked more than twenty questions on that topic, the Plaintiff had no clear recollection, and only remembered having recognized one woman and one man. The Defense continued by asking about the knife that the Accused had carried around and had been, according to the Plaintiff, “black, short and very sharp.” Specifically, P2 was supposed to specify how she could have known that the knife was sharp. The Plaintiff responded that the knife was different to kitchen knives and that she commonly saw that knife in ISIS beheading videos. When P2 was asked if she saw Abu Abdallah’s particular knife in use, she responded that Um Abdallah had told her that Abu Abdallah would be there “to fight in Jihad, which does not exist in Germany,” and that he “came to Syria in support of his brothers.”
***
[75-minutes-break]
***
Upon return from the lunch break, the Defense of Twana H.S. continued by asking about the liberation of P1. P2 testified that during one morning when P2 and P1 were visiting a Yazidi girl in [redacted location], for a few days, P1 was given a sheet of paper along with Abu Abdallah’s words of “I let you free.” While P2 did not remember whether Um Abdallah had also been present in that house, she did recall Abu Abdallah announcing his wish to subsequently leave for Türkiye. Furthermore, the Defense wanted to know who the Plaintiff gave interviews to after she had been liberated from ISIS. Although she commented that many media outlets more were involved, P2 only remembered her conversations with the NGO [redacted information] as well as [redacted information], each having lasted about an hour.
The Defense of Asia R.A. continued with taking up the topic of the Plaintiff’s everyday life under the Accused. P2 testified that Abu and Um Abdallah’s house was not painted in any recognizable way and had a [redacted information], that sometimes Yazidi girls came to visit and that then, private conversations between them were possible without the oversight of either of the Accused, that the prayer and eating times remained the same on most days, and that Abu Abdallah was regularly not home during the day. P2 added that Um Abdallah often wore “[redacted information]” in the house and sometimes even [redacted information] clothes. Outside of the house, she exclusively wore “[redacted information]” and “only made herself pretty for Abu Abdallah.” Um Abdallah did not become more religious when Abu Abdallah was around, according to the Plaintiff. Responding to further questioning by Asia R.A.’s Defense, P2 testified to not know if Um Abdallah had any profession or task within ISIS structures, but that Abu Abdallah had directly told the Plaintiff about his task to “go to Syria to fight.” Furthermore, Abu Abdallah and Um Abdallah [redacted information] and only turned angry whenever P1 or P2 made mistakes in the household. The Defense then asked why the Plaintiff testified that P1 had told her not to tell Um Abdallah about the “rape,” to which P2 responded that Um Abdallah might not like that “he is with other women.” She added that Abu Abdallah “raped P1 way before” herself, which Um Abdallah must have known. Finally, P2 testified that Um Abdallah only got personal with her once, right after she had been “raped,” to ask her for forgiveness and tell her about her wedding with Abu Abdallah.
***
[33-minutes-break]
***
After the break, the Presiding Judge concluded the questioning by the Defense and announced the open court viewing of 19 pictures, mostly photographs of children, men and women. P2 was asked to comment if she had seen any picture before and if she knew who might be in them. P2 only recognized one girl that visited the Accused’ house once, two Yazidi friends that were with her and P1 in the ISIS house in [redacted location], two pictures with Um Abdallah, the daughter of Abu and Um Abdallah, and one photograph of [redacted name], P1. The final two pictures showed an AK47 and a PK machine gun weapon, which the Plaintiff each confirmed to have seen in Abu Abdallah’s weapon box.
Finally, the Presiding Judge asked P2 if she had spoken with her sister [redacted name], F127, about her upcoming testimony, scheduled for the day after, which the Plaintiff denied clearly. When P2 was dismissed as a witness and was about to exit the courtroom, the Accused Asia R.A. suddenly stood up and calmly called: “I ask for forgiveness!” Asia R.A. recognized that she was not heard at first and repeated her sentence about five times, each in a calm manner and with a smile on her face. The Court rushed to ask the Court Interpreter for Arabic/Sorani [redacted name], C1, to translate, and subsequently gave P2 the option to respond. Under tears, the Plaintiff cried out that one “could never forgive such things” and was then escorted out of the courtroom. Although Asia R.A.’s Defense did not seem approving of their client’s sudden exclamation, they did not try to intervene in any moment either.
After having made sure that Asia R.A. understood the response of the Plaintiff, the Court adjourned the proceedings at 3:40 PM.
The next trial day will be on January 13, 2026, at 9:30 AM.
Day 41 – January 13, 2026
On the second trial day of this week, the Court heard [redacted name], F127, who is the only remaining sister of Plaintiff P2. F127 was represented by witness counsel [redacted name], F40, while the interpreters remained the same from the day before.
The Presiding Judge started the hearing by informing F127 of her rights and duties and asked for her personal details. F127 told the Court that she was born on [redacted time], and is [redacted information] years old. She currently does not practice a profession and does not have any familial relations to either of the Accused. The Presiding Judge then noted that F127’s current place of residence will remain concealed for security reasons and told the witness that the Court “does not want to know it.”
The Presiding Judge then prompted F127 to tell the Court of her “own story” and abduction by ISIS, but urged her to keep it short, as information on her sister P2 should remain the focus. In response, the witness told Court the exact story P2 had already testified before the Court on trial days 36 and 37 [see Trial Report #19], especially the moments when her family was ambushed and her father killed by ISIS members, the first separation of her family members and F127’s journey first to [redacted location], then to the [redacted location], where ISIS kept hundreds of Yazidi girls and took pictures of them to distribute them further. There, the witness was forcefully separated from her mother and P2, she testified, and was brought into an ISIS house together with her sisters [redacted name], F120, and [redacted name], F128. At this house, they stayed for one night and were told to get sold to ISIS members the day after. “To not get raped,” F120 wanted to kill herself and planned to cut up her veins, the witness testified in tears. On the morning after, blood flowed out of the bathroom doors, and subsequently, F120 was found dead. As a reaction to F120’s suicide, ISIS men threatened the remaining Yazidi girls in the house to not kill themselves, otherwise their dead bodies will be “used for the dogs.” Eventually, F127 was brought into a school building in [redacted location], where an ISIS member called [redacted name], F129, took the witness with him, while F128 stayed back. Shortly after, F129 “abused” F127, she explained, but was interrupted by the Presiding Judge telling her that there is “no need to go further into that.” The witness then continued with her testimony and told the Court that she got to see P2 and her mother in [redacted location], during one summer, and in [redacted location] once, approximately one year after the initial ambush by ISIS. F127 saw her sister F128 one more time, but later learned that she also killed herself. The witness concluded that she was liberated on [redacted time], while her sister P2 was bought free for “more than [redacted information] binder” [note: a “binder” of cash commonly refers to 10.000 USD] in [redacted time].
The Presiding Judge then started with his questioning and mostly asked about the impressions F127 had when she reunited with her sister P2. The witness testified that everyone was “very happy but also sad” and added that P2 confirmed to have been abused “although she had been so little.” Furthermore, the witness described how P2 had always been a happy child, but turned anxious upon return. She still, however, talked a lot about the “two or three” families she was held captive by, especially of Abu and Um Abdallah, who forced her to do the dishes and prepared her to “get raped by Abu Abdallah, although he had a child.” F127 recalled most details from P2’s “rape,” and specifically hinted towards the [redacted information], the marriage narrative Um Abdallah constructed for the “rape,” and that Um Abdallah put makeup on P2 ahead of the act. F127 knew that the “rape” happened in the top room of the house and recalled that P2 told her that Abu Abdallah hit her sister on her soles with a stick. When the Presiding Judge asked the witness what P2 understood under the term “rape,” and further specified the question by asking whether it was “only touching by the man or also rubbing his genital against her body or violently entering her body,” F127 only responded with her memory that Abu Abdallah tied P2 up with something and then “assaulted” her. Furthermore, P2 had cried and Abu Abdallah then “slept with her.” Later on, the witness confirmed that Abu Abdallah had entered P2 with his genitals, which led to bleeding, as P2 told her. According to the witness, P2 did not tell her about any other violent abuses by Abu or Um Abdallah.
The Court continued with questions about P1. F127 knew the name of P1 and testified that also she was “raped” by Abu Abdallah, had to complete household tasks, and was “only five years old.”
Finally, the Court returned to F127’s sister and asked about P2’s current circumstances. F127 explained that she took on the role of a mother for P2 and bought all groceries from the little money they received in the [redacted information]. Later, her uncle occasionally took care of P2. Until recently, her sister cried very easily, often dreamed of the Accused, stated that she had “no life anymore” and had to visit a psychologist two to three times over the past years. She would be doing better now, however, and mentioned her wish to go back to school and eventually work. Before ISIS’ abduction, P2 wanted to become a doctor, which she had never brought up again since. On most days, F127 cooked for P2, who slept long into the day, and then spent the day walking through the [redacted information] “to meet new people.” When the Presiding Judge asked if P2 was ever able to leave the [redacted information], the witness responded with: “this is not possible.” Suddenly, the Defense of Asia R.A. interrupted the testimony and demanded a “biological break” for the Accused.
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[20-minutes-break]
***
After the break, the Court asked their final questions, precisely where P2 had last been held captive, to which F127 just responded with “[redacted location],” but did not know of any other names of Yazidi girls that P2 might had mentioned to her. Subsequently, the Plaintiff Counsel continued with questions. She prompted the witness to recall the moment when P2 was forcefully separated from her mother and asked how P2 reacted in that moment. F127 testified that P2 told her to have woken up, and her mother suddenly was not there anymore. “We all believed to get reunited again,” the witness added. Furthermore, F127 explained to the Court that there is no a worse thing than having your two brothers and sisters as well as your father killed. Until this day, the witness imagined how much easier her life would be if she had a father that could take care of her.
Then, the questioning of psychological expert [redacted name], E4, who will write an expert report on the psychological state of P2, followed. In response to around 1,5 hours of questioning by E4, F127 testified that when her family of four sisters and five brothers lived with her parents in [redacted location], P2 was a “cute girl,” who was “spoiled a lot” by her mother, who ran the household, and her father, who worked in [redacted information]. P2, who never visited a kindergarden as the family was “not rich enough,” never had any fights with her family or friends, was a very curious child who went to school for about two years passionately and “even received a ten once” [note: the witness referred to a school grade, “ten” being the highest achievable]. According to F127, her sister was never abused as a child, especially not by her parents as they were a “peaceful family, in which [all] behaved and listened to the parents.” All in all, P2 was a quiet child. When P2 visited her mother “two to three times” for “three to four days” during her ISIS captivity, she took care of the newborn child of her mother, was constantly sad and scared and had the sudden urge to hide whenever ISIS men came by. After P2 had been freed in [redacted time], she came into “[redacted information] and stayed there ever since.” There, she usually sleeps long into the day, tries to clean [redacted information] after waking up, “loves the children [redacted information],” and likes to watch movies and be on her phone until late into the night.
***
[77-minutes-break]
***
After the lunch break, the witness continued with her testimony on her sister P2. After [redacted time], P2 started to complain about not being able to sleep well anymore, and had constant worries about “what happened to [her] family,” the witness described. Besides, P2 did not have any strength to go to the school of the [redacted information]. For a few times, she went to a psychological doctor, who told her that “life goes on and if God wants, the ISIS men will receive the punishment they deserve,” which calmed P2 down. One time, P2 expressed the wish of not wanting to live anymore, but according to F127, did not attempt to hurt or kill herself. Generally, while P2 only cried “sometimes, whenever she thought of the past treatment of her family,” she feared men with long beards and would still be scared to sleep alone. Additionally, P2 mentioned her fear that the [redacted information] could be attacked again. In response to a question by E4 of whether P2 had any issues with remembering things, the witness testified that she would “know no girl her age that is more intelligent than her sister.” While F127 testified that P2’s psychological state always worsened whenever she thought of her experiences under ISIS, she also had no answers to many of the specific questions of E4 and did not present her sister as fundamentally different to before. F127 concluded E4’s questions testifying that P2 had no friends in the [redacted information], as she did not go to school there “because everyone was younger in the school,” but enjoyed going to a park in the [redacted information] with her cousins as a “hobby.” Finally, the witness described her sister as a “very nice girl that likes to be around honest people.”
The Persecutors followed up with the question what P2’s relationship to men from outside of her family was, which the witness did not understand. To the subsequent question of whether P2 showed any romantic interest in men, F127 responded that her sister “is not ready for such a thing, as she does not want responsibility for children right now.”
Then, the questioning of the Defense started. The Defense Team of Twana H.S. first wanted to know about the store P2 testified to have worked in during her time at the [redacted information]. The witness explained that an NGO provided funding for some families to build up a business in the [redacted information], with which F127 and P2 started buying clothes for women and girls via their uncle, and sold them in the [redacted information]. While F127 and P2 spent almost every day in that store for a year, they had to close the operation after that year, as they ran out of money and had no profit. In response to a clarifying question by E4, why F127 suddenly testified to have worked in the [redacted information], the witness explained that she would “not call selling things work.” The Defense then switched to asking the witness what P2 had told her ahead of F127’s testimony. F127 explained that her sister expressed that Abu and Um Abdallah hurt Yazidi children and since they both came to Germany, they stand trial there. This is why P2 and she herself were summoned as witnesses, F127 continued. Subsequently, F127 testified to have a [redacted information]-year age gap with P2, speaks regularly with P2 about her experiences under ISIS, and came to [redacted information]. Then Twana H.S.’s Defense asked who the abusers of P2 were, and the witness responded with “those here.” She subsequently testified to have not spoken with P2 about this since their arrival to [redacted location] again, as “one does not have to repeat things ten times.” After P2 had testified in front of Court, she only commented to F127 that the “hearing days take a long time.” The Defense was clearly dissatisfied with this response and started to reformulate the same question several times, which visibly confused and stressed the witness, who eventually stopped responding. When the Defense of Twana H.S. followed up with the question of whether P2 “enjoyed” to talk about her experiences under ISIS, and F127 responded with a strict “no” and that “it is hard enough to get those stories out of our heads that we carry with us with fear every day,” the Court announced a break.
***
[15-minutes-break]
***
After the break, the Defense of Twana H.S. asked F127 if she currently lived in a house with her sister P2. To this, the Court interpreter for Kurmanji, [redacted name], C3, interrupted the Counsel to explain that in Kurmanji, there is no linguistic difference between a house and a flat. Still, the Counsel repeated the question and added the word “[redacted location]” to the end of it, to which the Presiding Judge commented that the witness had already testified that she lived in a [redacted information] until she left the country, but that both Defense Teams should stop assuming that the witness and her sister P2 traveled to Munich from outside of Germany. When the Defense of Twana H.S. asked where the court summons had been received, the witness responded that “in [redacted location], it works different and [redacted information]” [note: the country of residence was disclosed, which had been concealed by the Court thus far. While the parties to the proceedings noted this, no one commented]. F127 then confirmed that the summon explained that Abu and Um Abdallah, whose names were mentioned “on” the summon, had been captured in Germany and that P2 and F127 needed to come to Germany to testify in front of Court. The Defense of Asia R.A. then only seemed interested in knowing who F127 had shared her story with. F127, however, did not remember any names or organizations. When the Defense asked her about the name [redacted name], W7 the witness did not recall that name either.
To the surprise of the Court, Twana H.S. loudly expressed his interest in asking a question to the witness, which was quickly stopped by his Defense Team. In the presence of the witness, the Defense discussed with Twana H.S. for about 20 minutes if a question should be asked or not. The intense discussion, which every member of Court witnessed, came to an end with Twana H.S. loudly shouting “yes, we have plenty of questions, but in this Court, one is apparently not allowed to ask them.”
After the witness had been dismissed, the Presiding Judge granted both Defense Teams time until January 20, 2026, to prepare statements in accordance with Sect. 257 GCCP, and urged them to declare their availability for trial dates up until the end of July as soon as possible.
The Court adjourned the proceedings at 4:20 PM.
The next trial day will be on January 19, 2026, at 9:30 AM.
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