After five years of her detention in Turkey and her recent transfer to Iraq, a death sentence was issued on Wednesday against the wife of the former ISIS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, for her involvement with ISIS. The Iraqi judicial authorities announced in February that they had interrogated al-Baghdadi's family, including his widow, as part of a plan to repatriate individuals wanted for terrorism-related offenses from abroad.
What do we know about al-Baghdadi's widow? Her name is Asma Fawzi Muhammad al-Kubaisi, also known as "Umm Hudaifa." She is the first wife of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Asma al-Kubaisi, 48 years old, lived with al-Baghdadi in the Idlib countryside in Syria in 2012, and later in Raqqa, Syria, in 2014. She lived in Turkey using a forged identity and a pseudonym. In 2019, Turkey announced her arrest in Hatay province near the border with Syria in 2018 along with ten other individuals, including her daughter Leila. After her arrest, she provided important information regarding al-Baghdadi and the internal workings of ISIS.
The death sentence was issued against her by the Iraqi Criminal Court of Karkh for her role in working with ISIS and for holding Yazidi women in her home. She was accused of capturing Yazidi women within her house and subsequently handing them over to ISIS in the Sinjar district, west of Nineveh province. Asma al-Kubaisi portrays herself as a victim of ISIS and denies the charges of her involvement in the activities perpetrated by the organization. Yazidis had filed a lawsuit against al-Baghdadi's widow for participating in the kidnapping and enslavement of Yazidi girls, demanding a death sentence against her.
In October 2019, the United States announced the killing of al-Baghdadi in a nighttime raid in northwest Syria, just kilometers from the border with Turkey.
