Suspected Islamic State member and her children returned to Germany

A German woman and her children are believed to be the first former ISIS members to be returned to the country, AFP reported yesterday.

Thirty-year-old Laura H. is thought to be the first adult female ISIS member who has “been returned through official channels to Germany from Syria”, the news organisation reported.

She arrived in Frankfurt airport late on Saturday from the Kurdish Iraqi region of Erbil, and is the subject of an investigation on suspicion of membership of a terrorist organisation as well as failure to properly care for her children.

Laura H. has been banned from travel and had her passport confiscated. Her children are in the care of relatives.

Der Spiegel reported that “she travelled in 2016 from Giessen in central Germany to Syria with her children and her husband, a Somalia-born US citizen, where she joined ISIS [Daesh].”

She apparently turned away from Daesh after she was captured by Kurdish forces following her husband’s killing.

Last week a federal judge ordered that a German citizen arrested on her return to the country on suspicion of being a member of Daesh should remain in custody.

European states have been reluctant to allow the return of the families of suspected Daesh fighters claiming fears of extremism and a threat to security.

France has said citizens who joined the militant group, which operated in both Syria and Iraq, should be tried near where crimes were committed.

However Turkey says it would start repatriating Daesh detainees to their own countries on 11 November, sending them back even if their citizenships have been revoked.

Source: MEM