A 21-year-old Russian student has defended herself against
charges of attempting to join the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) in Syria,
saying she fell in love online with one of the group’s jihadis and wanted to
find him in the conflict zone.
Prosecutors are seeking a five-year jail term for Varvara
Karaulova on charges of preparing to participate in a terrorist organization,
to which she has pleaded not guilty. They say she represented a public danger
as she could have become trained in the workings of ISIS.
Karaulova’s mother has said that her daughter is now
“psychologically dependent” on her ISIS recruiter, named as Airat Samatov.
The student ran away from her family home in Moscow on May
27, 2015 and went to Istanbul, where Turkish authorities detained her for
traveling without identification as she traveled toward the Syrian border. She
returned to Russia in June of that year, where she was held in Moscow’s
Lefortovo Prison.
Baptized in a Russian Orthodox church, Karaulova became
deeply connected to Samatov online, and began to wear long skirts to Moscow
State University, where she was studying philosophy, and covering her head to
adhere to the Islamic faith.
Her case demonstrates the strong pull of ISIS to foreign
fighters and the effectiveness of jihadi recruiting through online mediums and
communications. Several high-profile cases, such as the three British
schoolgirls who fled to Syria via Turkey in February 2015, have seen female
jihadis travel to the conflict zone to become brides of ISIS fighters or to
live in the group’s self-styled caliphate.
Russia is waging a military campaign against opponents of
President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, including ISIS.
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