Austrian prosecutors have filed terrorism charges against Maria G., an Austrian national who left the country as a teenager to join ISIS in Syria. The Salzburg Public Prosecutor’s Office announced on Monday that she has been charged with crimes committed by a terrorist and a criminal organisation.
Maria G. converted to Islam in 2013 and left Salzburg in 2014, aged 17, after being influenced by ISIS propaganda films. She travelled to Syria, where she married ISIS fighters and gave birth to two children. She was captured in 2019 and held in the Roj internment camp in northern Syria from September 2020.
Although the Austrian Foreign Ministry offered to repatriate her children as early as 2019, Maria G. refused. In October 2024, an Austrian court ordered her and her children to return, and they arrived back in Austria on 1 March 2025.
According to the prosecution, Maria G. supported ISIS through her relationships with its fighters, helped sustain their morale, and knowingly promoted the group’s radical aims. The charges carry a potential prison sentence of one to ten years. As she was between 17 and 22 years old at the time of the alleged offences, her trial will be held in a juvenile court in Salzburg.
Maria G., who has no prior criminal convictions, has partially confessed but denied knowing ISIS was a terrorist organisation.
The case has sparked political controversy. The right-wing Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) condemned the decision to bring her back to Austria, calling it “absolute madness” and a security risk. The party is now pushing for legislation that would revoke citizenship from Austrians proven to have joined ISIS abroad and deport them.
