Dutch mom: I fled ISIS, didn't join them; Tells court no plans to attack NL
Laura H., a 21-year-old Dutch woman who escaped from ISIS territory with her two children last year, never joined the terrorist organization and was not sent back to commit an attack in the Netherlands on behalf of the caliphate, she told the court in Rotterdam on Thursday, RTL Nieuws reports.
The young woman from Zoetermeer said she took her kids and fled from Syria to Kurdistan in Iraq "because I found it terrible what happened in the ISIS territory". She told the court that "I'm being treated like I'm a criminal and I'm not", and that she "never had the intention to join ISIS" and never did.
The hearing in the court of Rotterdam on Thursday was a pro-forma hearing in which the court had to decide whether or not Laura H. would be released from custody. The actual lawsuit will appear in court on a later date.
The Public Prosecutor is working on the "worst case scenario" - that ISIS sent Laura H. back to the Netherlands to commit an attack in Europe. The Prosecutor bases this on messeges between Laura and her father in which she initially glorifies ISIS actions and says that she "wants to live for Allah". As Laura has refused to make a statement to the police or magistrate, there is no way to test this belief, the Prosecutor said.
The fact that Laura H. has not participated in the investigation by giving the authorities a statement, played a big part in the court's decision to remand her back into custody. According to the court, the interest of the criminal process outweighs the accused's desire to be reunited with her children. The court also ruled that she should be examined by the Pieter Baan Center.
