Willie R. Tubbs, FISM News
A team of United Nations investigators says that seven years ago members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant systematically killed at least 1,000 prisoners in an Iraqi prison.
Special Adviser Christian Ritscher, the head of the team, told UN Security Council ambassadors on Thursday that from 2014 through 2017, ISIL members committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in Iraq, which included the use of chemical and biological weapons against Iraqi communities.
Most notable was the mass execution of Shiite prisoners at Badush Central Prison in 2014.
“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,” Ritscher said.
The U.N. team reached its conclusions following the exhumation of bodies from a mass grave found near Mosul in Northern Iraq.
After forensic testing, a review of ISIL documents, and interviews with survivors, Ritscher’s team discovered that the prisoners had been separated from the rest of the prison population based on their religious affiliation.
In addition to this religiously motivated mass killing, Ritscher said ISIL members in Iraq spent almost three years acquiring chemical weapons and later took over a university, the goal being to create a more expansive chemical and biological arsenal.
“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,” Ritscher said.
He added that ISIL employed the use of their own and international scientists as a means of capitalizing on their ill-gotten resources.
The terrorist group funded itself through the plundering of resources of numerous Iraqi communities.
“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,” Ritscher said. “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.”
Despite the grim and disturbing nature of Ritscher’s report, the special adviser said he was hopeful that this moment could prove the catalyst for bringing ISIL members to justice. The evidence collected by the U.N. team, Ritscher said, had led to the identification of some perpetrators.
“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,” Ritscher said. “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’s report was one of two major anti-ISIL announcements to have occurred in the past 24 hours.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday said the U.S. and its partners would be intensifying efforts to defeat ISIS in Africa.
The Global @Coalition and the U.S. are working to ensure the enduring defeat of ISIS. The Coalition must continue to counter the ISIS threat around the world – including Africa. Launching the Africa Focus Group will help prevent and defeat all terrorist groups. pic.twitter.com/JPBOhmW8kn
— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) December 2, 2021
Both ISIS and ISIL exist under the broader terrorist group known as the Islamic State.