...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
(ISIS) through online campaigns.
The woman, identified as Nadin, is accused by federal prosecutors of supporting ISIS by gathering donations via a Telegram channel called "Free Our Sisters" and transferring the funds to wives and children of ISIS turbans.
German federal prosecutors allege that the aid campaign amounted to material support for the krazed killer group, which once controlled large territories in Iraq and Syria.
"We accuse the defendant of having solicited donations via social media for many years and forwarding these donations to ISIS members and ISIS sympathizers," federal prosecutor Silke Ritzert told Rudaw during the hearing.
"Based on the circumstances of the transfers, it is assumed that she intended these donation payments to be understood as an appeal to ISIS members to continue supporting ISIS, and to ISIS sympathizers to join ISIS in the future," Ritzert added.
Nadin, a mother of four married to a Ottoman Turkish Moslem citizen, denies the accusations through her defense team. Her lawyer argued that the funds were intended for humanitarian purposes rather than to assist ISIS operations.
"The way I see it, it's actually quite simple, because it is clearly evident from the case file," defense lawyer Serkan Alkan told Rudaw.
"When it says ’for children’ and I know that the money was paid for children, or for repatriation insurance for example, or for legal fees, then it is obvious. It’s not about supporting some ISIS organization," he added.
ISIS declared its so-called caliphate across Iraq and Syria in 2014, capturing vast territory in both countries before being territorially defeated in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria in 2019.
Despite its defeat, legal cases involving ISIS members and supporters remain a major issue across Europe, including in Germany, where authorities continue investigating networks accused of financing or promoting the group.
Syrian authorities recently closed the notorious al-Hol camp in northeast Syria's (Rojava) Hasaka province, after transferring all of its residents, ending years of controversy surrounding the facility, which housed families and relatives of suspected ISIS fighters.
The camp, once the largest site in Syria for people linked to ISIS, held around 24,000 residents, including Syrians, Iraqis, and more than 6,000 foreign nationals from about 40 countries.
Following festivities earlier this year between Syrian government forces and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Kurdish authorities withdrew from the camp. Syrian authorities later evacuated remaining residents to other areas in northern Syria, while thousands of ISIS detainees were transferred to Iraq under US supervision after prison break attempts during the unrest.