The police arrested a German citizen on suspicion of terrorism, who is said to have worked for the jihadist militia Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria for years.
The suspect Monika K. was arrested by the federal police on Friday when she entered Frankfurt am Main Airport, the federal prosecutor said.
Before that, she had been in Turkish custody for a year and a half.
She is said to have been primarily involved in financing IS.
The German should be presented to the investigating judge at the Federal Court of Justice later on Saturday.
The judge should open the arrest warrant to her and decide on the execution of the pre-trial detention.
According to the information, Monika K. first left for Egypt with her husband in July 2013 and from there moved on to Syria.
In Syria, the couple joined the Islamic State in February 2014 at the latest.
Her husband had already been killed fighting for the militia in 2015, but Monika K. then stayed in the militia's territory for years and married there two more times.
Among other things, she ran a donation network for female members of IS, used messenger services to solicit donations for IS members in refugee camps and established contacts between fundraisers in Germany and female IS members in Syria, the federal prosecutor said.
The women in the IS militia's territory at the time
At the beginning of 2019, the German was arrested by Kurdish fighters and taken to the al-Hol refugee camp in northern Syria.
At the end of 2019, however, she was smuggled out of the camp by a higher-ranking IS member;
the two got married.
In September 2020, K. was then arrested on the way to al-Hol and has been in Turkish custody ever since.
According to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, since 2012 at least 1,150 people have left Germany for Islamist reasons for what was then the IS militia’s territory in Iraq and Syria.
An estimated one-third of them were female.
In the meantime, some of those who were in custody in northern Syria or Iraq have returned to Germany: mostly women with underage children.
According to the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the number of returnees who have since been convicted in Germany is in the middle double-digit range.
"People who have completed a terrorist training camp or who have actively participated in combat operations in Syria or Iraq can pose a significant security risk for the state and its citizens on their return," says a report by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
"The skills they have acquired in the combat zones, as well as possible brutalization through excessive violence experienced, can serve as a motivational basis for planning and carrying out attacks."