Washington, DC, USA (us.gov.krd) – Representative Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman this week had a productive meeting with Thomas Lynch, the Senior Advisor to the UN team investigating crimes committed by ISIS in Iraq.

In a virtual meeting, Ms. Abdul Rahman and Mr. Lynch discussed the progress the United Nations Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by ISIS (UNITAD) has made in gathering evidence of international crimes committed by the terrorist organization, such as genocide and war crimes.

Mr. Lynch praised the Kurdistan Regional Government and the Government of Iraq for their cooperation with UNITAD and said that the evidence that is being gathered could be used in courts to hold ISIS criminals to account. They also discussed other aspects of UNITAD’s work, such as supporting the archiving and digitizing evidence.

The KRG established an office in 2014 to gather evidence and testimony from Yezidis and Christians who survived genocide and called for an international tribunal to bring the criminals to justice. UNITAD was established by the United Nations in 2017 as an investigative team to support Iraqi domestic efforts to hold ISIS accountable for crimes it committed in the country by collecting, preserving, and storing evidence in Iraq of acts that may amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.