A suspected IS supporter who traveled to the war zone in Syria with her small children is on trial in Berlin. The General Prosecutor’s Office in Berlin accuses the 31-year-old, among other things, of membership in a terrorist organization abroad and violation of the duty of care and education. The woman did not comment on the start of the process on Tuesday before the Court of Appeal. However, she had her defense attorneys explain that she “expressly reserves the right to” make a statement.
According to the indictment, by mid-2016 at the latest, the accused represented a radical Islamist attitude and identified with the ideology of the terrorist organization Islamic State (IS). The departure to Syria was planned together with her husband and his second wife. According to the indictment, when the implementation of the plans was too slow for the woman, she took matters into her own hands. She had assumed that her husband would follow quickly.
Supported by a network, the woman left Germany with her sons aged two years and ten months and one year and eight months at the end of October 2016. She got to Syria via Turkey, where she arrived in the province of Al-Rakka in January 2017. The husband is said to have joined the terrorist organization as an IS fighter by June 2017 at the latest.
The accused assumed the role of the wife of an IS fighter. She also spread her jihadist ideas via a Telegram channel. During the time in Syria, the woman is said to have wrongly received child benefit from Germany. The husband used the money when he left for Syria, according to the allegation.
According to the indictment, the woman gave birth to a daughter in September 2018. The 31-year-old raised her children ideologically in the spirit of the IS and thus contributed to the establishment and continued existence of the terrorist militia, according to the allegation of the general public prosecutor’s office. She exposed her children to “poverty, hunger and violence in the family”. In at least one case, they witnessed a shootout involving a dead child in the Al-Hol detention center. To this day, the children are traumatized and need psychosocial support, said prosecutor Robert Kohly when reading the indictment.
Aid organizations have long complained about the inhumane conditions in the overcrowded camps in north-eastern Syria. According to the UN, thousands of former IS supporters and their children also live in the camps, including many German nationals.
The accused was arrested in early October 2021 and is in custody. According to earlier information from the Attorney General, she and her two sons had arrived with other women during a so-called group repatriation from Syria at Frankfurt (Main) Airport. A court spokeswoman was initially unable to provide information on where the children are today. The fate of the daughter is also unclear.
In July 2021, the Court of Appeal sentenced another IS returnee to three years and four months in prison, who had traveled to Syria with her daughter in December 2014. The final judgment at the time stated that the nine-year-old was “deeply traumatized by what she experienced” and marked for her life.
