German woman sentenced to five years for joining ISIS

Sabine S said she wanted to live under Islamic law but not fight

Sabine S said she did not want to fight for ISIS. AP
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A German woman and convert to Islam has been sentenced to five years in prison for membership of ISIS.

The 32-year-old, identified only as Sabine S under German privacy laws, lived in Syria from late 2013 until August 2017 and wrote a number of blogs praising life in territory controlled by the terror group. She allegedly received weapons training between 2014 and 2017 and married an ISIS fighter she met in Syria who died in 2016.

The woman was captured by Kurdish forces in September 2017 along with the wives of other IS fighters and returned to Germany in April 2018.

"I wanted to live under Islamic law, but not fight,” she said at the start of the trial.

The news came a day after an ISIS member who also converted to Islam and who was in the Irish army for ten years told the BBC she did not pose a threat to anyone if she were allowed home.

Speaking from a displacement camp in Syria, Lisa Smith said she simply wanted to return home to give her two-year-old child a good upbringing. She said the FBI had visited her more than one and had taken her fingerprints.

“I’m not like a terrorist. I’m not out to kill anyone,” she said.

“I don’t even think I’m radicalised,” she added. “All I know is I just come to an Islamic state and it failed. So, at the beginning I didn’t come to kill anyone.”

Ms Smith has also faced accusations she trained young girls to fight, something she denies. She joined ISIS after divorcing her Tunisian husband, who had not wanted to join the terror group.