Germany sentences mother to 5 years in prison for ISIS membership in Syria
The Stuttgart Higher Regional Court sentenced "Sabine Ulrike Sch." after a trial that began in late 2018 following her arrest months earlier in the southwestern German city of Baden-Baden.
Sabine lived in Syria from late 2013 until August 2017, according to court documents. German federal prosecutors charged she was a member of the Islamic State (ISIS) group which is considered by Berlin to be a "terrorist organization."
Prosecutors requested six years in prison and her lawyer argued for three years before the judge handed down the five-year sentence.
During the trial, she tried to renounce her ISIS membership: "I know that I have misbehaved and am ready to stand up for it," German daily newspaper Die Welt quoted her as saying.
However according to the German authorities, Sabine regularly blogged in support of the organization during her time in the so-called caliphate.
The mother of four children encouraged the use of suicide belts, posted photos of firearms, and also championed a messenger service used by ISIS to spread propaganda.
In the Islamic State, no child would have to grow up amid the "garbage of the Western world," prosecutors provided as evidence demonstrating her mindset with ISIS. She had said there were "no sins, drugs, or alcohol" in the caliphate.
According to government data, about one-third of the 1,050 people who left Germany to join jihadist groups in Syria or Iraq have returned to the country. Some 220 have reportedly been killed in the two countries.
Germany's WDR channel reported in June that an estimated 117 children who are likely German nationals are being held in detention centers in Syria and Iraq.
The facilities are under the control of Kurdish authorities: the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) security forces.
Prosecutors alleged that Sabine had entered Syria through Turkey in December 2013, when she was immediately married to a "high-ranking ISIS fighter."
The two lived together under the rules of the caliphate; however, her unnamed husband was killed in fighting in December 2016. She remarried to another fighter in September 2017, according to the German investigation.
Debate has raged country-by-country on justice for alleged ISIS fighters, members, and their families. The United States has called on member states of its anti-ISIS coalition to repatriate nationals to face justice in their home countries. Most alleged ISIS members in custody in Syria are under the control of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
The SDF is primarily comprised of the predominately-Kurdish Peoples' Protection Units (YPG) which has been backed by the US-led international coalition. The SDF repeatedly has said it is incapable of indefinitely holding and trying or dealing with the suspected ISIS members and their families.
Others have been tried and sentenced to death in Iraq — an issue for many countries which lack or have eliminated capital punishment. Iraqi PM Adil Abdul-Mahdi has said justice for foreign fighters is a matter for courts to decide.
Cases like Sabine's underline the troubles faced by governments when allowing nationals to resettle in their home countries.
"In light of the knowingly porous EU external borders, it is especially worrying that the federal government appears to have taken no further measures to prevent the uncontrolled re-entry of obfuscated ISIS fighters," Linda Totenberg, who chairs the Interior Committee of the German parliament, told Die Welt Am Sonntag in June.