“Planned attack: Eight and a half years in prison for ISIS returnee,” NDR, September 1, 2023
A 34-year-old from Salzgitter has been imprisoned for eight and a half years for membership in the terrorist militia “Islamic State” (IS) and a planned attack on a festival near Hildesheim.
In addition, the Higher Regional Court (OLG) Celle came to the conclusion that Marcia M. is said to have manufactured explosive belts and recruited wives for potential assassins. Before the OLG, Marcia M. had admitted the allegations, as confirmed by a court spokesman. However, the presiding judge accused her of always basing her confession on the current state of the investigation. “What we missed was the tangible remorse and the insight that we had done something wrong.” The verdict is not yet legally binding.
They are said to have distributed IS propaganda and planned an attack. The accused face up to ten years in prison.
Several attacks on festivals in the planning?
In September 2015, the accused traveled with her husband from Germany to Syria to join IS there. She is said to have joined a women’s battalion, volunteered for suicide bombing and completed gunnery training. She was also accused of planning attacks on music festivals in Germany, so a music festival for children near Frankfurt was under discussion, and a festival in the Hildesheim area could also have been the target of an attack. According to the federal prosecutor, the attacks did not occur because the IS fighters selected for them were unable to leave the country.
The accused had the idea “that parts of the German population should be mass murdered,” said presiding judge Ralf Günther in his almost two-hour verdict. According to the court, the position of the 34-year-old within the IS was significantly higher than that of other IS returnees, who mainly managed the household for their husbands in Syria.
The trial against the 34-year-old began in April. According to the OLG spokesman, the Federal Public Prosecutor had requested a prison sentence of nine years. The defense, on the other hand, had pleaded for a sentence of “no more than three to four years,” according to the spokesman.