Widow of German Islamic State rapper is arrested in Hamburg

The German-Tunisian woman has been arrested just months after a cellphone provided fresh evidence about her time in Syria. She had married two IS fighters, one of whom was rapper-turned-extremist Denis Cuspert.

German authorities said on Monday that Omaima A., a German-Tunisian woman, was arrested in Hamburg last week for her ties to the “Islamic State” (IS).

Omaima A. was once married to German rapper-turned-IS fighter Denis Cuspert, who is believed to have died in Kobane in 2018.

The arrest comes just months after rumors of her presence in Germany spread after a cellphone purported to belong to her was discovered and reported on by a war reporter in Syria.

It was unclear how Omaima A. lost her phone or whether she deliberately left it behind when she decided to begin a new life in Germany, but it was said to contain some 36 gigabytes of data documenting her life with IS.

Born in Hamburg in 1984, Omaima A. is said to have been acquainted with some of Germany’s most prominent Islamist extremists when she met her first husband Nadar H. and moved to Syria in 2015. He was ultimately killed in Syria while fighting for IS.

Later, Omaima A. became involved with and married Cuspert, who once went by the stage name Deso Dogg, but she later left him and is said to have returned to Germany in 2016 while pregnant with their child.

Cuspert was one of the most prominent Western IS fighters, having appeared in several propaganda videos including one that apparently showed him with a man’s severed head.

According to German media outlets, Omaima A. was working as an event manager and interpreter after her quiet return.

She is due in court on Tuesday at the Federal Supreme Court in Karlsruhe. In addition to the charges of IS membership, she also stands accused of indoctrinating her children into the extremist ideology of the terrorist group.

Source: DW