ERBIL — The United Nations (UN) is preparing to unveil a centralized archive containing millions of digitized documents that serve as evidence of crimes committed by the Islamic State (IS) group in Iraq, an official said on Wednesday.

UNITAD, the UN body established to investigate IS crimes in the country, initiated its fieldwork half a decade ago with the aim of bringing the jihadists to justice.

"For us, it is absolutely clear that only if we work side by side with Iraqi authorities, in particular with our counterparts in the Iraqi judiciary, UNITAD can be successful," UN's chief investigator Christian Ritscher emphasized, as cited by AFP.

Ritscher, a former German prosecutor, has been examining a range of IS atrocities, including murder, torture, mass rape, slavery, and genocide. He emphasized the significance of holding the perpetrators accountable through evidence-based trials conducted by competent courts, referring to them as "heinous international crimes."

"I can assure you that there is no shortage of evidence of ISIL crimes in Iraq," he said, using an alternate acronym for the IS group. "ISIL was a large-scale bureaucracy that documented and maintained a state-like administrative system."

Highlighting the bureaucratic nature of IS, Ritscher emphasized that the group maintained a state-like administrative system, which facilitated the documentation of their activities. Recognizing this, UNITAD embarked on an extensive project to digitize IS documents, ensuring that the evidence is admissible in courts, both within Iraq and internationally.

To date, eight million pages of documents from Iraqi authorities have been digitized and have already proven valuable in the Iraqi judicial system, according to Ritscher.

The next phase involves establishing a centralized archive that will serve as the unified repository for all digitized evidence. Ritscher announced that, in agreement with Iraqi authorities, the archive will be launched "in the coming days" and will be housed at the Supreme Judicial Council of Iraq.

Ritscher believes that the establishment of this repository could be a milestone in the creation of a comprehensive e-justice system in Iraq, setting an exemplary model not only for the region but also globally.

In 2014, IS militants experienced a rapid expansion, briefly controlling approximately one-third of Iraqi territory. Iraq declared victory against IS in December 2017, but the group did not fully collapse until March 2019, when it lost its last stronghold in neighboring Syria.