Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide: UN Commission Presents Evidence Indicting ISIS in Iraq
A UN commission tasked with investigating crimes attributed to ISIS in Iraq has deposited a vast amount of data after meetings with Iraqi officials, mainly from the judiciary, as well as with survivors of terrorist acts and civil society organizations, years after its dissolution.
The United Nations said in a statement that the commission, whose special mandate ends next September, had delivered around 28 terabytes of data out of 40 terabytes to the ambassadors of the member states of the Security Council.
Pierro López, head of the commission investigating allegations of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, informed Security Council members during an open session that the evidence collected and preserved by the commission members includes witness testimonies, data from digital devices belonging to ISIS members, as well as field investigations and contexts derived from advanced forensic methods.
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He added that the commission would present additional amounts of data to the council next Monday, also including digital information obtained from the authorities of the Kurdistan region of Iraq.
He explained that the relevant Iraqi authorities would be the main recipients of the evidence and other materials and analyses collected by the team, noting that the majority of the digital evidence had already been transferred.
He indicated that the UN team prioritized capacity-building activities, which continued in areas such as exhumation of mass graves, identification of victims, digitization and archiving of records related to ISIS, and witness protection and support.
It is worth noting that this move coincides with the tenth anniversary of ISIS‘s declaration of its self-proclaimed “caliphate.”
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The demand for accountability for international crimes committed in Iraq remains ongoing, even after ten years.
Over the past years, the UN team has collaborated with relevant Iraqi authorities to exhume 67 mass graves, digitize 18 million pages of paper records related to ISIS, and extract data from a large number of digital devices seized from the terrorist organization.
Member states, including Iraq, may consider holding ISIS members accountable for the international crimes they have committed in the future.
