A jihadist woman from the Zabalgana neighborhood in Vitoria, Spain, of Peruvian origin and with Spanish nationality, accepted an agreement with the National Court Prosecutor's Office on Tuesday for the crime of self-indoctrination and self-training for terrorist purposes.
Thanks to the reached agreement, both she and her family will be able to continue residing in their current state-subsidized housing, as no measures were established that affect their housing situation, according to Spanish media reports.
The woman was arrested in September 2023 during a Civil Guard operation, which was investigating her for spreading Islamic State propaganda and planning a trip to Iraq to join the jihadist group. During the investigation, agents detected that she managed channels on messaging applications from which she shared audiovisual material with extremist content.
La yihadista detenida.
In the search of her electronic devices, more than 92,000 images, 2,300 videos, and more than 1,000 audio files were found in various languages, all linked to radical Islamist ideology. After her arrest, her four minor children were left in the care of their father, who was not involved in the investigated activities.
During the court hearing held this week, the accused, who appeared covered with a niqab, admitted the facts but denied having attempted to indoctrinate her children, despite the case file containing messages in which she expressed her desire for them to become Islamic terrorists. She stated that such declarations occurred in an "emotional" context and did not reflect concrete intentions.
La yihadista detenida.
The agreement reached reduced the sentence initially requested by the Spanish Public Ministry, which was five years in prison. Finally, a sentence of one year in prison —which will not be served effectively— and three years of disqualification from holding public office or working in the educational field was set.
The Spanish prosecutor justified the reduction by considering that the woman had shown a supposed "explicit rejection of terrorism" and an attitude of "collaboration" with the Justice. He also explained that, although his superior contemplated a greater penalty, he considered the punishment agreed with the defense more appropriate.
