The Higher Regional Court (OLG) Düsseldorf sentenced Fadia S., who has returned to ISIS, to four years in prison on Thursday.

According to the court's ruling, the woman from Essen incorporated herself into the terrorist organization “Islamic State” (IS) in Syria around six years ago and was also guilty of appropriating an apartment and violating the duty of care and upbringing.

Pure burger

Political correspondent in North Rhine-Westphalia.

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    S. followed her husband, who had recently left the country, with their four small children in August 2015 to what was then IS territory. According to the reasons for the judgment, the husband, who was presumed missing, had a leading position in the jihadist network around the self-proclaimed preacher Abu Walaa from Hildesheim, who was considered the governor of IS in Germany and smuggled countless young men willing to jihad into IS territory before he left for Syria. The later Berlin Christmas market bomber Anis Amri also visited the Abu Walaas mosque for a while.

    After arriving in Syria, S. and her family moved into an apartment, the residents of which had previously fled from IS or had been driven away by IS, which the OLG judged as a war crime against property. In addition, the court was convinced that S. supported her husband in various functions in the IS structure. Accordingly, he was active in weapons management, as a contact point for travelers and those willing to change, and as a fighter.

    The German-Lebanese woman sent her children to educational institutions close to IS, where they were brought up in line with the ideology of the terrorist organization "and were exposed to the dangers of civil war, particularly through air strikes," as the verdict says. When the IS suffered increasing territorial losses, S. began to plan her departure from Syria. At the beginning of 2018 she managed to escape to Turkey with her now five children, from where she returned to Germany in February 2018. She was arrested in Essen at the end of July 2020. The federal prosecutor had requested five years imprisonment, the defense a suspended sentence. The verdict is not yet legally binding.