Jury convicts American woman in IS training case

Defense attorneys urged the jurors to focus on the lack of direct evidence against Halima Salman.BROOKLYN (CN) — Jurors found Halima Salman guilty Tuesday of receiving military training with the Islamic State group in 2018 after her father moved the family from Brooklyn to IS-controlled territory in Syria and had her married to an IS fighter shortly after she turned 18.In a weeklong case, prosecutors called expert witnesses to testify about the U.S.-designated terrorist group’s rise and fall. They showed jurors propaganda videos that portray women joining the fight in an all-female battalion called Nusaybah Katibah, primarily composed of the wives of IS fighters.Defense attorneys had urged the jury to focus on the lack of direct evidence against Salman: No witnesses said she attended any training, nor even testified that such training took place in the IS territory where she lived for two years.It was Salman’s father who decided in September 2016 to move the family of 11 first to Turkey, his home country, and later to Syria, where Salman and her siblings spent the first three months in a cramped guest house known as a “madafa,” with bombs sounding outside.Shortly after her 18th birthday, her father arranged for her to marry an IS fighter named Abu Ali, without Salman’s consent, just a few days after the two met, she testified.Salman said her father and Ali made the arrangements in a room that looked like a garage. Her marriage license lists a $5,000 marriage payment, “payable when able.”“I was scared. I had a very bad feeling about it. I was wondering if this was what was supposed to happen to me. My heart was burning,” Salman said on the stand.Salman last saw Ali in early 2019, as IS fighters surrendered to to the U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. She was brought to a detention camp in northeast Syria, where she’d remain for five years until her mother secured repatriation for the family in May 2024.Instead of rejoining her U.S.-born family when she got off the plane at John F. Kennedy Airport, however, Salman was arrested.Defense attorney Mia Eisner-Grynberg said the FBI agent who interviewed Salman in Syria before she flew back to the U.S. had trapped her by saying she was going home, while she was actually sitting for a prearrest interview.An image from the cell phone of Abu Ali, Halima Salman's husband (left) and its English translation (right). (U.S. Department of Justice)It was on Ali’s phone that investigators discovered prosecutors’ key evidence: a handwritten document, purportedly issued by IS officials, authorizing Salman to receive an AK-47 and ammunition. They also discovered a short video that shows Salman handling an automatic rifle while Ali films.“A hard life does not make a weapons authorization form disappear,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam Amir said during his rebuttal closing Thursday. “Living under difficult conditions and still supporting ISIS … are not mutually exclusive.”Eisner-Grynberg argued in her own summation the document was forged, noting it lacks the official IS stamp seen on other documents in evidence and didn’t appear in IS files, only on Ali’s phone.Eisner-Grynber also reminded jurors Salman was “18 years old, alone with this man she didn’t choose,” with no cell service in a war zone.Jurors began deliberating Thursday afternoon and requested in a jury note to see the stamped and unstamped documents.The sole charge, knowingly receiving military-type training from a foreign terrorist organization, carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. Salman was out on bond before and during trial.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads