Facts
Nadja R. was convicted of having traveled from Germany to Syria in the summer of 2014 and having joined ISIS there. Shortly after her arrival in Syria, she religiously married an ISIS fighter. She allegedly took over all household management tasks in order to enable her husband to participate in combat operations and subsequently to work in an ISIS telecommunications office. In August 2014, she reportedly posted a message on her Facebook page to women who were willing to get married and offered them her support in leaving Germany or Europe for the territory of ISIS.
Between May 2015 and January 2017, the couple were assigned by ISIS to successively occupy two lodgings in the city of Tal Afar, Iraq, whose lawful residents had fled from the approaching ISIS troops. Nadja R. also received a monthly living allowance from ISIS.
In June 2017, Nadja R. was captured in Raqqa by a Kurdish People’s Defense unit and was taken to a prison camp. Until her return to Germany in autumn 2022, Nadja R. stayed in various Kurdish camps.
Procedure
Nadja R. returned to Germany on 5 October 2022 and arrested after landing at Frankfurt airport. She was continuously held in pre-trial detention from that time.
The main hearing before the Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt am Main was held on 8 September 2023 and the trial lasted until December 2023.
On 24 January 2024, the Court found Nadja R. guilty of participating in a terrorist organization and war crimes against property, and sentenced her to three years and three months in prison. Her full confession as well as her five-year stay in the Kurdish camps, were taken into account in her favor when determining the sentence. The Court also mentioned that Nadja R.’s childhood was marked by traumatic experiences such as being kidnapped by her own father and taken to Lebanon at the age of six and her later forced marriage to a Lebanese cousin at the age of 14.