IS returnees: mother in court for war crimes

A trial against a 44-year-old woman for membership in a terrorist organization abroad and war crimes has begun before the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court in Hamburg.

The Schleswig-Holstein native from Bad Oldesloe is said to have traveled to Syria with her then 13-year-old son in the summer of 2016 and joined the Islamic State (IS) terrorist militia, as a representative of the federal prosecutor said at the indictment reading. On February 23, 2018, the son died in a bomb attack. The family man is said to have gone to Syria as a fighter for IS in 2015.

Other charges against the 44-year-old include violation of the duty of care and education, negligent homicide and violation of the Weapons Act. After her son’s death, the defendant asked her older son in Germany to be happy about his brother’s “martyr’s death”. She remained loyal to IS until its military defeat and only surrendered to Kurdish forces together with her husband in February 2019. After her return on March 24, 2021, the accused was arrested by officers from the Schleswig-Holstein State Criminal Police Office at the airport in Berlin. Nothing is known about the whereabouts of the man.

Defense attorney Martin Heising said his client would initially not comment on the allegations. The woman with blond, pinned hair and a white hooded shirt only gave her personal details. When asked about her job, she said: “none”. In an opening statement, the defense attorney contradicted the conclusions of the federal prosecutor’s office from the files. The accused was not a “terrorist of a highly ideological nature” who sacrificed herself for the interests of IS. She only wanted to live with her husband, whom she married in 1993 when she was 15.

The husband went to Syria in 2015 without her knowledge. Heising explained that she found out that he had been injured there and decided to follow him. His client was living in an Islamic environment at the time, but had “no sympathy for IS at all”. Contrary to what was presented by the federal prosecutor’s office, her husband was not a fighter, but “actually more like a cook”. He organized the entire smuggling of his wife and son. According to the indictment, the man was active in a senior position for the terrorist militia.

According to the federal prosecutor, the accused was not able to enter IS territory directly from Turkey. So she first went to the northern province of Idlib, where she joined another Islamist militia, the Jund al-Aqsa. She willingly made her son available to the militia as recruits. The now 14-year-old received military training. At that time there were fighting with rival militias and government troops. The son was used at roadblocks and as a guard. At least once his life was in danger from being shot at.

In February 2017, the Jund al-Aqsa allied with the IS and the accused could have traveled to the IS stronghold of Raqqa with her son. The boy received religious and ideological training and – after his 15th birthday – also training to become a fighter. The accused managed the household for her husband and received money from IS. She owned a gun and was equipped with an explosive belt. The family later withdrew to eastern Syria with IS troops. There the son died as a result of a bomb attack on a house in the neighborhood.

Defense attorney Heising said his client had mourned the loss of her son. Just as they say in Germany that the deceased is now in a better place, in Islamic societies they console themselves with the belief in a martyr’s death. A shahid (martyr) does not necessarily have to have been a fighter. Someone who died under the rubble could also be called that. The mother’s request to her older son to be happy about his brother’s martyrdom was not an expression of an ideological attitude, but rather an expression of the processing of grief. She also felt shame for bringing her son to this place.