ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The United Nations team investigating Islamic State (ISIS) crimes handed over evidence from its six-year investigation to Iraq's Supreme Judicial Council on Sunday.
The head of the UN Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Da'esh/ISIL (UNITAD), Ana Peyro Llopis, handed over the files during a meeting with Faiq Zidan, president of the council, according to a statement from the judiciary’s media office.
In July, the Kurdistan Regional Government confirmed that it had received some data from UNITAD.
The UN investigative team was established in 2017 by the UN Security Council at the request of the Iraqi government to ensure that ISIS militants would be held accountable for their crimes. The team's work included collecting witness testimony, leading the exhumation of mass graves, and training Iraq's judiciary.
The investigative team has had a difficult relationship with the Iraqi government over various issues like information-sharing and Baghdad’s usage of capital punishment. Additionally, the UN’s political assistance mission has announced it will leave Baghdad in 2025. UNITAD is ending its mission and its mandate will expire on September 17.
Regarding its relationship with Iraqi authorities, UNITAD's public information office said in an email to Rudaw on Tuesday that they have cooperated closely for six years.
UNITAD also said they are working to ensure the investigation can continue, having collected some 40 terabytes of evidence thus far.
Civil society organizations have expressed concern about the closure of UNITAD, the transfer of evidence, and justice for survivors.
“Despite these efforts, Iraq lacks the necessary legislation to prosecute the international crimes that UNITAD was designed to address,” the Coalition for Just Reparations, an alliance of non-government organizations in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, said in a joint statement in June.
Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and several local organizations co-signed on the statement.
“Furthermore, the transfer of evidence from a UN agency to a national jurisdiction requires assurances of fair, independent trials and adherence to UN standards, which Iraq has yet to provide,” the statement added.
Additionally, representatives for ISIS’ Yazidi victims, the ethno-religious minority most affected by the extremists, have expressed concern over custody of the evidence amid the continued exhumation and discovery of mass graves. They want to see justice for the genocide and crimes against humanity.
