Laura H.: Federal prosecutor accuses IS returnees

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Camp in the Syrian al-Haul (03/31/2019): Interned by Kurds

Photo: Maya Alleruzzo/ AP/ DPA

A woman who traveled with her two children to the terrorist organization IS in Syria will probably soon have to answer in court.

The Federal Public Prosecutor's Office has brought charges against Laura H. at the Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt am Main.

This emerges from a message.

The investigators accuse the Germans of membership in the terrorist group "Islamic State" (IS) and a violation of their duty of care and education.

According to the information, H. followed her husband to Syria in 2016 and lived there for some time in the IS-controlled area.

According to the federal prosecutor, she submitted to the organizational and command structure of the IS and lived with her family in an apartment that was partly financed by the association.

By managing the household, H. made it possible for her husband to work for IS.

In addition, she is said to have been closely involved in a transfer of around 27,000 euros from Germany to IS territory.

Man died in bomb attack

In April 2017, the family fled approaching attacks, and the man was killed in a bomb attack.

The children survived "unharmed only by a coincidence," it says.

H. then moved into an IS widow's house and later married another IS fighter in eastern Syria.

At the end of 2018, she was taken into custody by Kurdish forces and taken to a camp.

H. returned to Germany in November 2019.

After weeks of negotiations, the Federal Foreign Office, in cooperation with an American aid organization, managed to free the woman and her children from the camp where Kurdish security forces had interned several thousand IS supporters and to bring them to the northern Iraqi city of Erbil.

Laura H. had stated that she had broken away from the ideology of the IS.

At least that's what she reported to the BKA officials, who questioned her for a while in Erbil.

According to the federal prosecutor, Laura H. is currently free.

ptz/dpa/AFP