Germany probing Yazidi teen’s claim her former IS captor tracked her down

German prosecutors are looking into an Iraqi refugee's claim her former Islamic State captor tracked her down in Germany but police could not help.

Ashwaq Haji Hami, 19, told an Iraqi-Kurdish news outlet this week that she had twice encountered IS member Abu Humam in Germany on the streets.

She said she was kidnapped in Iraq in 2014, aged just 14, then bought for £80 by Humam, who enslaved and abused her for three months before she escaped.

The Yazidi teenager said she reported the two incidents, in 2016 and outside a supermarket in February this year, to German police, but, fearing for her safety, she moved back to Iraq in June.

She also said police told her Humam was a refugee and they could not do anything.

"On the way back to school a car pulled up next to me," she said.

"He was sitting in the front seat. He talked to me in German and asked: 'Are you Ashwaq?' I was so scared I was shaking. I said, 'No, who are you?'"

She said he then replied: "I know you are Ashwaq, and I am Abu Humam."

The teenager said he told her he knew everything about her life in Germany, including where she lived.

:: Yazidi women vow revenge on Islamic State captors who used them as sex slaves

German federal prosecutors rejected suggestions that they had failed to act on the case.

"The young woman was interviewed but the information [she provided] wasn't precise enough," spokeswoman Frauke Koehler said.

"If we'd seen an opportunity to arrest someone, we would immediately have done so," she said.

Ms Koehler added that authorities did try to follow up in June but the woman had already left Germany.

Ms Hami, speaking from a camp for displaced people near Shekhan in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, said she left Germany as she was so terrified of bumping into Humam - real name Mohammed Rashid.

"I recognised his face very clearly and whenever I see him I can recognise him ... because of the beatings he gave us," she told the AP news agency.

"We saw him 24 hours a day. So anytime or anywhere I see him, I would be able to identify him.

"I am not ready to sacrifice my honour in Germany.

"If I was kidnapped or killed in Germany, who would find out who did that to me?"

Ms Koehler said German federal prosecutors opened a special investigation several years ago into alleged war crimes by IS militants.

As part of that they are looking into the killing of thousands of Yazidis by IS supporters in 2014, when many more were captured and kept as sex slaves .

About 3,000 Yazidis are still missing, with most believed to have been killed in the war in Syria and Iraq.

Jan Ilhan Kizilhan, a German doctor who helped bring hundreds of Yazidi women to Germany in 2015, told local broadcasters that seeing people who look like their captors can trigger traumatic memories.

German prosecutors added that if they get any further information on Ms Hami's case "we will pursue this".

Ms Koehler said Ms Hami would need to return to Germany, which she is legally entitled to do, for them to pursue the case, saying, "our powers end at the German border".