A French jihadist was sentenced to life in jail on Friday for involvement in Islamic State group atrocities against Iraq’s Yazidi minority, the first case in France to tackle the issue. The Paris Assizes Court found Sabri Essid guilty in absentia of genocide, crimes against humanity and complicity in the crimes, committed between 2014 and 2016 when the jihadists occupied swathes of northern Syria and Iraq. “Sabri Essid took part in the genocide perpetrated by the Islamic State group,” presiding judge Marc Sommerer told the court. “Essid became part of the criminal network repeatedly buying and reselling a very large number of Yazidi victims,” he said, adding the court judged that the group had “specifically targeted” the Yazidi minority for its religious beliefs. The Islamic State group regarded the Yazidis, who follow a pre-Islamic faith, as heretics. Essid, a Frenchman born in 1984 and who joined the IS group in Syria in 2014, is presumed to have been killed in 2018. But without proof of his death, he was tried and convicted in absentia. He …