Iraq seeks international help to investigate Daesh crimes

Iraq asked for international help on Wednesday to collect and preserve evidence of crimes by Daesh and said it is working with Britain to draft a United Nations Security Council resolution to establish the investigation.

Britain, international human rights lawyer Amal Clooney and Nadia Murad — a woman from the Yazidi religious minority who was enslaved and raped by Daesh fighters in Mosul — have been pushing Iraq to allow a UN inquiry.

The 15-member Security Council could have established an inquiry without Iraq's consent, but Britain wanted Iraq's approval in a letter formally making the request. Iraq sent the letter on Monday.

"We request assistance of the international community to get benefited from international expertise to criminalize Daesh terrorist entity," wrote Iraq's Foreign Minister Ibrahim al Jaafari in the letter, which was translated from Arabic.

Britain's mission to the United Nations said on Twitter that it was working with Iraq on a draft resolution. It was not immediately clear when it could be put to a vote in the council.

Daesh's self-proclaimed caliphate effectively collapsed last month, when US-backed Iraqi forces completed the recapture of Mosul, their capital in northern Iraq, after a nine-month campaign.

Parts of Iraq and Syria remain under Daesh control, especially along the border.

"I hope that the Iraqi government's letter will mark the beginning of the end of impunity for genocide and other crimes that ISIS is committing in Iraq and around the world," Clooney said in a statement, referring to the English acronym for the group. 

"Yazidis and other ISIS [Daesh] victims want justice in a court of law, and they deserve nothing less," Clooney said.

Yazidis are an eclectic religious sect fusing Zoroastrian, Manichaean, Jewish, Nestorian Christian and Islamic elements. Orthodox Islamic scholars regard them as heretical.

UN experts said in June last year Daesh was committing genocide against the Yazidis in Syria and Iraq to destroy them through killings, sexual slavery and other crimes.

The Iraqi government stated in the letter the importance of bringing Daesh terrorists to justice in Iraqi courts.