The Belgian Federal Prosecutor's Office has announced that a national of foreign origin declared that she will not be returning to Belgium from Syria, local media reported.
Siham, the woman in question, was sentenced in absentia to five years in prison and a fine of €8,000. The court also stripped her Belgian citizenship for membership of a terrorist organization.
She traveled to Syria in 2014 to join her husband, Soufiene, who arrived there in September 2013. The couple joined al-Nusra Front and she decided to stay even after her husband died in 2018.
The public prosecution indicated that Siham was influenced by extremist ideologies she found online before traveling.
She followed a student organization calling for the return to the so-called “roots of Islam” which included members such as Najim Laachraoui, one of the two suicide bombers who attacked Brussels Airport in March 2016.
The court also sentenced in absentia another woman, Saeeda, to five years in prison and revoked her Belgian citizenship.
Saeeda traveled in 2013 with her young son to join her husband, Rashid, where they became members of the Mujahideen Shura Council, and later ISIS.
Rashid was sentenced in absentia to eight years in prison in the case of the "Sharia Group in Belgium" in 2015, and her brother Ibrahim was sentenced to 10 years in prison after traveling to Syria.
Saeeda returned to Belgium at the end of 2014 to give birth to her second child, and in the summer of 2015 she traveled to Poland and Ukraine and from there joined ISIS.
Belgian media said that the international coalition fighting ISIS had found documents in Raqqa, including the marriage certificate of Saeeda to another man dating May 2017, which confirms the death of her first husband, Rashid.
Last December, the Brussels Criminal Court sentenced three female ISIS members to five years in prison. They are Nora, 26, Hafsa, 27, and 30-year-old Ilham.
The court also revoked the citizenship of all three and called for their immediate arrest for their involvement in the activities of a terrorist group.
Last November, The Brussels Federal Public Prosecutor Office announced that both Tatiana, 27, and Bushra, 26, and 6 children, voluntarily surrendered to the Turkish authorities after successfully escaping from the nearby Ein Issa camp.
They had previously been sentenced to five years in prison for joining a terrorist group.
The two left for Syria in 2013, and then returned to Belgium to give birth after their families pressured them.
Their husbands were killed in combat in 2014. Bushra and Tatiana returned to conflict zones, and each married another fighter.
According to Belgian media, Bushra and Tatiana have 6 children; 4 of them were born on Belgian soil, while the other two were born in Syria. DNA tests will be conducted to confirm if the children belong to the two women.
