A German teenager who ran away from home to join the ISIS terrorist group said she just wants “to go back home,” German media reports.
Linda Wenzel, 16, left her hometown of Pulsnitz, near Dresden last year using her mom’s passport. She gave an interview to German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung after being captured in Iraq by Iraqi forces.
“I just want to go back home to my family. I want to get away from the war, away from all the weapons, away from the noise,” she told reporters.
Lorenz Haase, a senior public prosecutor in Dresden confirmed the teenager had been “located and identified in Iraq” and was receiving consular support, but could not say anything about her exact circumstances, The Guardian reports.
Wenzel was found after Iraqi forces liberated the northern city of Mosul from ISIS fighters.
Wenzel could face the death penalty in Iraq for being a member of ISIS, according to the country’s counter-terrorism law.
The teen told reporters she had been hiding in a basement at Mosul when Iraqi soldiers captured her. Despite a bullet wound in her left leg, she said she is “doing fine,” CBS reported.
It is not clear if Wenzel can return back to Germany of if she will be tried in Iraq for her work with ISIS.
She was expected to be interrogated this week by Iraqi officials.
The teen reportedly fell in love with a Muslim man online when she was still in Germany, but he died shortly after they married, according to CBS.
Iraqi officials told AP that on the day of Wenzel’s arrest she was “too stunned” to speak but had shown signs of improvement since then.
Iraqi MP Vian Dakhil, and other media have claimed Wenzel served as a sniper for ISIS.
In a tweet on July 16, Dakhil says “A sniper #isis was captured in #Mosul, she is #German girl.”
Even if she was sentenced to death in Iraq, the country would not execute her before the age of 22, CBS reports.
Wenzel was one of 26 foreigners that were arrested at the war-torn Mosul base.
From NTD.tv
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