The German Islamist Nadja Ramadan has to answer before the State Security Senate of the Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt am Main on suspicion of membership in the terrorist organization Islamic State and war crimes. The 38-year-old from Landshut is accused by the Frankfurt Public Prosecutor's Office of having traveled from Germany to Syria in the summer of 2014 and having joined ISIS there.

Shortly after her arrival in Raqqa, Ramadan married the separately persecuted Cem Kula, a jihadist from Hamburg, and led a marriage "according to the model of the in the areas occupied by ISIS". In order to enable her partner to take part in battles and to work in an ISIS telecommunications exchange, she is said to have taken on all household chores and raised their children.

Ramadan is also accused of having contacted women in Germany or Europe who would like to marry via Facebook in order to offer them their support in traveling to ISIS territory.

From May 2015 to January 2017, Ramadan lived with her husband in two apartments in the city of Tel Afar (also Tal Afar) east of Shengal, whose legal Christian residents had fled the approaching ISIS mercenaries. Therefore, Ramadan is also charged with two war crimes.

After around three years in the self-proclaimed ISIS caliphate, Ramadan, meanwhile, back in Raqqa, was captured in the summer of 2017 by the Kurdish People's Defense Units (YPG). At the time, she was on her way to Turkey. Cem Kula, who is said to have been believed dead, organized his wife's failed escape across the Syrian-Turkish border. Until her return to Germany in autumn 2022, Ramadan sat in various reception and detention camps run by the Autonomous Administration of Northern and Eastern Syria (AANES) for ISIS from other European countries. She has been in custody since her arrest at Frankfurt Airport in early October. The main hearing before the Higher Regional Court begins on 8 September.

Dusseldorf: Charges against two alleged ISIS members

Two other alleged ISIS members could soon stand trial in Düsseldorf. The public prosecutor's office in the German city has brought charges against a 29-year-old and a 27-year-old before the state security senate of the higher regional court in the North Rhine-Westphalian state capital, the authority announced on Friday.

The suspects from the Aachen region are accused of having joined ISIS for a few months after leaving Germany in April 2015 at the latest. The two are said to have been involved in the structures of the terrorist militia in Syria and, after staying in a guest house, moved to a house provided by ISIS. The man, who is of Serbian and Kosovar nationality, is accused of being subordinate to the ISIS military administration. The woman, a German and Serbian national, is said to have run the joint household.

In August 2015, both are said to have broken away from ISIS and returned to Germany. The accused are currently at large. The Higher Regional Court decides whether to admit the indictment.