Head of UN investigators calls for an IS 'Nuremberg'

Baghdad: The head of the UN special probe into Islamic State group crimes has called for trials like those at Nuremberg of Nazi leaders to ensure the jihadists' victims are heard and their ideology "debunked".

For a year, British lawyer Karim Khan has travelled around Iraq with a team of almost 80 people to gather evidence and witness testimony for the UN body known as UNITAD.

"It's a mountain to climb", the human rights specialist told AFP, as the investigative team works to analyse up to 12,000 bodies from more than 200 mass graves, 600,000 videos of IS crimes and 15,000 pages from the group's bureaucracy.

Five years ago, when their self-proclaimed "caliphate" spanned territory the size of the United Kingdom, the jihadists imposed their brutal rule over seven million people across Iraq and Syria with administrations, schools, child soldiers, a severe interpretation of Islam and medieval punishments.

Minority groups considered by IS to be "heretics" or "satanists" were killed by the thousands, tortured or enslaved.

IS "wasn't some kind of guerilla warfare or a mobile rebel group... that's one aspect that is unusual" for international justice, Khan said from the ultra-secure UNITAD headquarters in Baghdad. "There was no taboo" for IS, Khan said.

"Who could have thought in the 21st century we would see crucifixion or burning a human alive in a cage, slavery, sexual slavery, throwing people off buildings, beheadings".