Chris Engels ’04 Testifies before Congress, Quoted in New York Times on Islamic State

Chris Engels '04, Deputy Director for Investigations and Operations for the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA), recently testified for two congressional committees and was quoted in a New York Times article on the legal investigation into atrocities committed by members of the so-called “Islamic State” against the Yazdi people of Iraq, which are alleged to include the systematic kidnapping of women and girls to establish a sex-slave market.  

"You have members of IS who were engaged in ensuring that this system continued and that it functioned well," said Engels. Without a legal documentation of their identities that CIJA is working to provide, those responsible could "slide into refugee streams" and disappear, he said.

Engels testified on the issue before the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe on September 22 and the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission on September 23.