Membership in a terrorist organization, complicity in genocide, war crimes: the allegations against an IS returnee weigh heavily. The woman is now in court – and wants to testify.
A suspected IS returnee from Bremen has had to answer to the higher regional court in Hamburg since Thursday.
Federal prosecutors accuse the 34-year-old of membership in a terrorist organization abroad, aiding and abetting genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The mother of two children is said to have been a member of the terrorist organization Islamic State (IS). The woman said she would make a statement at a later date.
In 2014, the German followed her brother to Syria and joined the IS, said the representative of the federal prosecutor at the indictment. There she married a man according to the Islamic rite. Together, the couple regularly viewed public “punishment campaigns” by IS.
Yazidi woman exploited and abused
After the death of her husband and the father of her first child, the defendant became another man’s second wife. She later married a third man. In the shared household in Mayadin on the Euphrates, the couple exploited and abused a Yazidi woman like a slave. With her behavior, the defendant contributed to the fact that her husband was able to rape the woman again and again, according to the allegation of the federal prosecutor.
In 2017, the woman from Bremen was reportedly arrested by Kurdish forces. In a prison camp in northern Syria, she gave birth to her second child in 2018. She returned to Germany last October and has been in custody ever since.
