Female Islamic State terrorist from Antwerp sentenced to five years in prison

Belgian Islamic State terrorist Saïda El Mimouni was sentenced on Tuesday to five years in prison and a €8,000 fine.

El Mimouni, who is from the municipality of Borgerhout in Antwerp, Flanders, was not present at her trial. The federal court ordered her to be stripped of her Belgian nationality and arrested on sight. However, it is suspected that she is still in Syria at the moment.

Saïda El Mimouni is the wife of Rachid Iba, a member of Sharia4Belgium, which was a Belgian radical Salafist organisation which called for Belgium to convert itself into an Islamic state.

El Mimouni had left Belgium on 8 March 2013 and arrived in Syria in April of that year to join Iba. The couple pledged allegiance to Majlis Shura Al-Mujahideen, then to the Islamic State terrorist group. While in Syria, El Mimouni also met her brother, Brahim El Mimouni, and his companion, Ilhame Hajji.

In late 2014, Saïda El Mimouni returned to Belgium, where she gave birth to her second son in January 2015. Two months later, she returned to Syria via Poland and Ukraine.

International coalition troops recently found a marriage contract, validated by an IS judge, certifying that Saïda El Mimouni was married in May 2017 to a Tunisian IS terrorist, which could mean that Rachid Iba died. Iba had been sentenced to eight years in prison in the 2015 trial against Sharia4Belgium in Antwerp.

Brahim El Mimouni had been sentenced to a 10-year jail term.

Source: Brussels Times