UK- Woman gets six years for joining IS group in Syria
(MENAFN- Gulf Times)
A mother who took her toddler to Syria and joined the Islamic State (IS) group was sentenced to six years in prison yesterday after becoming the first British woman to be convicted after returning home.
Tareena Shakil 26 was found guilty by a court in Birmingham of IS membership and encouraging terrorism in posts on Twitter before leaving Britain.
“You were well aware that the future which you had subjected your son to was very likely to be indoctrination and thereafter life as a terrorist fighter” judge Melbourne Inman said.
Shakil who was convicted on Friday maintained she took her son to Syria in October 2014 to escape an “unhappy family life”.
She said had been groomed by Isis recruiters who had targeted her when she was low because of the breakup of her marriage in the UK. She said her every move had been monitored by Isis minders and she had no choice but to send the messages and pictures supportive of the group.
The court heard that Shakil in October 2014 told her family she was going to Turkey for a beach holiday.
Instead she crossed the border into Syria and went to IS stronghold Raqa.
She wrote a message to a relative stating “I’m not coming back.”
In Raqa she was kept in a large house with other single women and posed with her son for a selfie while wearing a black balaclava branded with the IS symbol.
Other pictures found on her phone showed her posing with an AK-47 assault rifle and a handgun.
However Shakil found life under IS rules too strict.
In January 2015 after repeatedly looking up “I want to leave ISIS” on the Internet she and her son travelled by road to the Turkish border.
They ran 1km to escape into Turkey dodging a three-man IS patrol before handing themselves in to the Turkish military she told the court.
She was arrested when police boarded her flight home at London’s Heathrow Airport last February.
Sentencing her to four years for IS membership and two years to run consecutively for encouraging acts of terror Justice Inman said she would be entitled to release on licence after serving half her sentence.
As she was jailed members of Shakil’s family shouted that the hearing was a farce.
Speaking after the sentencing hearing children’s charity the NSPCC said: “This is a deeply disturbing case which could have resulted in tragedy for the toddler involved.”
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