Austria sentences woman for Daesh membership after repatriation from Syria

An Austrian court on Wednesday convicted a woman who was repatriated from a Syrian detention camp for having been part of the Daesh group, handing her a two-year suspended jail sentence. (AFP/File)

• Maria G., now 28, was brought back from Syria with her two sons in March and has remained free since her return
• The court ruled that she will have to continue undergoing psychological counselling and a de-radicalization program

VIENNA: An Austrian court on Wednesday convicted a woman who was repatriated from a Syrian detention camp for having been part of the Daesh group, handing her a two-year suspended jail sentence.
Since Daesh was ousted from its self-declared “caliphate” in 2019, the repatriation of family members of fighters who were either captured or killed has been a thorny issue for European countries.
Maria G., now 28, was brought back from Syria with her two sons in March and has remained free since her return, but was facing charges of being part of a terrorist group and a criminal organization.
At her trial on Wednesday in a court in the city of Salzburg, Maria G. pleaded guilty to both charges and “fully confessed,” court spokeswoman Christina Bayrhammer told AFP.
Prosecutors said they found no evidence of other crimes committed by Maria G. beyond her joining Daesh.
The court handed her a “suspended jail sentence of 24 months,” which she accepted, describing it as “another chance in life,” Bayrhammer said.
The court ruled that she will have to continue undergoing psychological counselling and a de-radicalization program.
The verdict is final, as both the prosecution and the defense waived their right to appeal.
Maria G. had left Austria as a teenager in 2014 to join Daesh in Syria, where she married a now-deceased Daesh fighter and gave birth to two children.
From 2020, she and her sons had been held in the Kurdish-run Roj detention camp for suspected militants.
They were brought back to Austria in March alongside another woman, Evelyn T., who was given a two-year suspended jail sentence in April.
In 2024, a Vienna court had ordered that Maria G. and her sons be repatriated, stressing that it was “in the children’s greater interest.”
Austria’s foreign ministry had previously rejected her request to be repatriated.
The EU member previously repatriated several children.
Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands are among other countries that have repatriated relatives of militant fighters.
Many of the women returned have been charged with terrorism crimes and imprisoned.