An IS returnee must spend four years in prison. On 3 May 2022, the Federal Supreme Court confirmed a corresponding judgement of the Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt am Main. The German defendant had converted to Islam in 2009. She had subsequently adopted a radical Islamist stance and moved in the Salafist scene in the Rhine-Main region.
In 2014, the then 25-year-old left for Syria with her partner. There, they both joined the terrorist organisation “Islamic State” (IS). Her partner had become “active as a fighter” for the IS. In chat groups, the accused tried to motivate women in Germany to join the IS. In six cases, the accused and her husband had moved into flats of people who had fled from the IS. In addition, her partner had given her “Kalashnikov AK 47” machine guns in two cases. She carried them with her in order to be able to fend off attacks against herself or the IS.
The Frankfurt Higher Regional Court had convicted the defendant of nine counts of “membership participation” in acts of the IS terrorist organisation abroad. The court also considered the possession of the flats to be a “war crime against property”. It described the possession of the machine guns as “acquisition of actual power over a weapon of war”.
The accused returned to Germany in October 2020. She is under the pseudonym “Maryam A.” co-author of the autobiographical book “Maryam A.: My Life in the Caliphate – A German IS Dropout Narrates”. The news magazine “Spiegel” published a text by her online in 2017. The link is below. The Higher Regional Court had imposed a total prison sentence of four years. The Federal Supreme Court rejected the appeal of the defendants against the judgement of the Frankfurt Higher Regional Court. Thus, its judgement is legally binding. This was announced by the Federal Supreme Court in a press release dated 1 June 2022.
https://www.bundesgerichtshof.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilungen/DE/2022/2022076.html?nn=10690868
https://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/aussteigerin-maryam-a-ueber-ihr-leben-im-islamischen-staat-a-1179328.html
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Das Landgericht in Tübingen. Foto: tünews INTERNATIONAL / Mostafa Elyasian.
IS returnee Maryam A. must serve four years in prison
