(NL Times) A Dutch woman suspected of traveling to Syria to join a terrorist organization is “deeply affected” by the “bitter” accusation that she deployed her underage son in the ISIS armed struggle. Ayada K. said this on Thursday during the first preparatory hearing in the case against her in the secure court in Rotterdam.
K. left for Syria with her two children in 2014. Her son was 13 at the time, her daughter 14. The Public Prosecution Service (OM) suspects her of being an accomplice in the recruitment of her son. The boy is said to have died in 2017 in fighting near the city of Raqqa, then the capital of the caliphate proclaimed by ISIS in northern Syria.
The United States assisted in returning the 47-year-old woman and her daughter to the Netherlands last May. She was present in court but mainly invoked her right to remain silent.
