Woman accused of Islamic State membership faces terror charges in Germany
Omaima Abdi, the former wife of two German Islamic State leaders, was charged in Germany on Monday with crimes against humanity. The charge was a result of two investigative reporters who exposed Abdi’s return to Germany from Syria.
One of Abdi’s husbands was the infamous former German rapper and Islamic State member Denis Cuspert (Deso Dogg) who later died in Syria. Despite this, she managed to return to Germany with her children after she reported herself to the German embassy in Turkey in August 2016, claiming to be innocent.
A few years later, two investigative reporters, Harald Doornbos and Jenan Moussa, managed to track Abdi down after they found her phone in Syria. The mobile had thousands of pictures with incriminating evidence, showing Abdi with guns, her child with a weapon, and her marriage to Cuspert.
More importantly, the phone contained addresses in Hamburg, Germany. The reporters traveled to Germany and discovered that she was working as an event planner and interpreter in the country.
In April 2019, the reporters published an article for the Dubai-based pan-Arabic Al Aan TV. They also shared information about her case on Twitter. German police swiftly responded on Twitter and said they were working on the case.
A few months later, Abdi was arrested in Hamburg. Moussa told Kurdistan 24 she believes Abdi “was still an ISIS operative at the moment of her arrest.”
On Monday, German prosecutors charged her with crimes against humanity, membership to a terrorist group, and also the enslavement of a 13-year-old Yezidi girl.
“I didn’t know [about the 13-year-old girl]. The German police found that out later. So, the reality was even worse than my report showed,” Moussa added.
The reporter said it was significant that her investigation had an impact. “Somebody almost got away with very terrible crimes. Many countries where ISIS people return to don’t even check the story of the ISIS returnee,” Moussa explained.
“But I have proven with this story that it is possible to find evidence in Syria of individual ISIS crimes. If you investigate hard and long enough you can find the evidence.”
According to Moussa, most countries do not try to find evidence. “You have to be on the ground in Syria, almost going from door to door to find evidence.”
Furthermore, Yezidi girls the so-called Islamic State enslaved, who Moussa interviewed often, knew who their enslavers were. “But no country, no embassy is talking to these girls trying to collect evidence.”
Moussa added: “These ISIS members might lie…but pictures, videos, documents, WhatsApp messages don’t lie.”
Moussa thinks that many of these women accused of Islamic State membership who claim to be innocent have fully cooperated with the terror group. “Some might have been sitting at home in Syria and many never really fought on the battlefields due to strict Islamic rules, but most women fully supported the ISIS ideology and brainwashed their own children at home,” she explained.
“And some women worked, for instance, for the ISIS police. Others – like Omaima [Abdi] – carried guns or had slaves. God knows what they did with these guns and with their slaves. The worst crimes they did, probably weren’t recorded with their phones.”
Pari Ibrahim, Founder and Executive Director of the Free Yezidi Foundation, told Kurdistan 24 that there is, in fact, a broad and wholly inaccurate misconception in Europe that females affiliated to the Islamic State “were naive, tricked, victims, or unaware.”
“They have been willing participants in horrific crimes, and we have issued some reports on crimes and obfuscations from female Da’esh [ISIS] members.”
For Ibrahim, the question is now how many more women with Islamic State links are living in Europe without being punished.
“We wonder if the German authorities would have arrested Omaima if not for Jenan’s work. She had returned to Hamburg and was living in Germany like nothing happened. We currently know of other Da’esh members living freely in Europe and we are also busy gathering evidence.”
Source: Kurdistan 24
