The girl was 15 years old when, according to the investigators, she decided to go to war for the terrorist organization Islamic State (IS).
Sarah O. threw the high school in tenth grade, packed her things and went in October 2013 from Konstanz to Syria. Now she sits in the high security hall of the Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf on the dock. The court on the outskirts of the city is like a fortress.
Sarah O. is a petite young woman. Her hip-length hair wears it open. Shortly after 10 o'clock, she is led into the hall by judicial officials. Her black-rimmed glasses seem too big in her narrow face. The Federal Prosecutor's Office accuses the now 21-year-old IS membership, participation in war crimes, human trafficking and deprivation of liberty. A conviction for crimes against humanity is also possible from the perspective of the Senate, chaired by Judge Lars Bachler.
Negotiations take place behind closed doors. At the request of defense lawyer Ali Aydin, the public is excluded. Viewers and journalists have to leave the hall before Attorney Simon Henrichs reads the charges. Sarah O. is said to have committed the deeds from the end of January 2014 to October 2017, and thus as adolescents and adolescents.
"The exclusion of the public is necessary for the education of the defendants," says the chief prosecutor. Although there is an increased need for information, "the decisive factor is that the defendant was only 15 at the time of her departure for Syria, and only 16 at the beginning of the crime and 19 at the beginning of the crime." The protection of youth is the order of the day. The accused was to be saved from "exposure and stigmatization".
She married an IS fighter
Thus, the public will not learn details about how Sarah O. radicalized even more in Germany. Nor about her life in Syria, where she married a few months after her arrival at the end of 2013 the allegedly high-ranking IS fighter Ismail S. and in the following years got three daughters. In February 2018 Sarah O. went to Turkey. In September 2018 she was deported to Germany. Since then she has been in custody.
Sarah O. is the daughter of an Algerian and a German. In the summer holidays she is said to have visited a religious school in Algeria before her departure for Syria. After that she should have changed. The investigators believe that Sarah O. went to fight to the IS.
In Syria, she is said to have lived with her husband and children in apartments whose owners were expelled or killed by the IS. In their power, two Yezidi women and a Yezidi girl are said to have been slaves. According to the Federal Prosecutor's Office, slavery served ISIS's goals of forcing the Yazidi people to give up their faith and join Islam. Sarah O. is said to have done together with her husband guard and police services for the IS and tried to recruit over the Internet more people for the terrorist group.
Sarah O. wants to speak in court about the allegations, not on this day, but on one of the following trial days. What she will say, her defender suggests outside the hall. "I assume that my client at no time had dominion over slaves," says lawyer Aydin. Sarah O. never participated in watch services.
The in-laws also sit in the dock
Her husband, Ismail S., is still in Turkey. He is well known to the German authorities. As a teenager, he had tried in the summer of 2008, together with his brother in Cologne, to lure police officers to steal their weapons. In a kind of testament they announced that they wanted to use the weapons to kill US soldiers and die as martyrs. After a juvenile sentence, the brothers left for Syria.
In Syria, Ismail S. is also said to have operated arms transactions with the IS with the help of his parents living in Germany. Father Ahmet, 51, and Mother Perihan S., 48, are sitting in the dock with Sarah O. The Federal Prosecutor's Office accuses them of supporting a terrorist organization. They should have helped their sons with money and weapon parts to provide the IS with weapons.
The case of Sarah O. is special because of her young age, but he is not an isolated case. For example, Jennifer W., 28, is currently on trial in Munich. She too should have worked for the IS. She too, together with her husband, is said to have held Yazidis as slaves.
Turmoil in the spectator area
While the Senate is deliberating on the exclusion of the public in Düsseldorf on Wednesday, there is a commotion in the waiting area for spectators.
One of the people waiting is Bernhard Falk, once a left-wing terrorist, now a Salafist. According to his own information, he cares for prisoners, regularly those accused of Islamist terror. He calls her political prisoner. Next to him is Gian Aldonani, she is on the board of the Central Council of Yazidis in Germany. Falk and Aldonani do not know each other. They exchange a few words. "They relativize the crimes of the IS," cries Aldonani suddenly upset and visibly horrified. She urges Falk to return her business card.
Falk does not shake hands with women but is not afraid to talk to them. He is accustomed to hype around his person and knows how to use him. Falk provokes, keeping calm and making no move to return Aldonani's card. Until she finally rips her card out of her shirt pocket. Judicial officials arrive and separate the two.
She takes care of Yazidi women and children released from IS captivity, Aldonani says afterwards. She knew about their suffering, knew about the rapes and the maltreatment.
"I told her explicitly that I do not want to put into perspective what happened to the Yazidis," Falk says afterwards. But that women like Sarah O. or even Jennifer W. in Munich, the trial is made, he considers wrong. That may be due to his image of women. Sarah O. ran the household and bore children, he says. He does not see her as a terrorist.
