'Islamic State' woman prosecuted in Germany
July 2, 2018
For the first time, German authorities are prosecuting a female citizen for overseas involvement with the "Islamic State" group.
Authorities have struggled to bring cases against female IS members, but the country's attorney general has vowed to step up legal action against them.
Morality police officer
Authorities revealed several details about the 27-year-old's case:
- Identified only as Jennifer W., she allegedly traveled to Iraq via Syria in 2014.
- Between September 2014 and the beginning of 2016 she allegedly worked as a "morality policewoman" for IS.
- She allegedly patrolled parks of the cities of Fallujah and Mosul, ensuring other women complied with the behavioral and clothing regulations of IS, earning between $70 and $100 (€60 to €86) a month.
- She was arrested and deported by Turkish authorities two and a half years ago after applying for new identity papers at the German embassy in Ankara.
- She was then arrested on Friday in southwest Bavaria and her apartment in Lower Saxony was searched.
Read more: Can foreign 'Islamic State' fighters' kids return to Europe?
'Enough evidence'
"It is the first woman for whom we have succeeded in establishing enough evidence to satisfy the requirements of the jurisdiction of the Federal Supreme Court," a spokeswoman for the Federal Prosecutor's Office told DPA news agency.
Difficult to prosecute: Hundreds of German citizens traveled to Syria and Iraq to fight and support IS, many of whom have now been prosecuted. But women have proven difficult to charge. They would normally marry fighters and indoctrinate educate with IS ideology, but generally would not take up arms or become active. The investigation into Jessica W. reportedly took two years.
Read more: What foreign powers want from the Syrian war
Crumbling proto-state: IS has been all but crushed by its numerous enemies in Iraq and Syria, being relegated to a handful of shrinking zones. The fighters have reportedly shifted their strategy to ideological terrorist strikes. A recent report by German news magazine Spiegel that cited German security authorities found that IS was educating its supporters on how to flee Syria and Iraq and evade justice by stealing other people's identity or completely destroying their documents.
aw/kms (dpa, AFP, epd, AP)
Editor's note: Deutsche Welle follows the German press code, which stresses the importance of protecting the privacy of suspected criminals or victims and obliges us to refrain from revealing full names in such cases.