Brooklyn Woman Convicted in Case Over ISIS Weapons Training
A federal jury found Halima Salman guilty of receiving military training from ISIS while she was in Syria. The decision followed a tense trial in Brooklyn that lasted two weeks. Salman testified that she had been taken to ISIS-controlled territory as a teenager and forced into marriage.
As the jury left the courtroom, Salman cried. Her mother, Brandy Salman, wept in the front row as a family member held her. Salman faces up to 10 years in federal prison, though the charge does not require a minimum prison term.
Sentencing and a Request to Overturn the Verdict
Salman remains free while she waits for sentencing, after posting a $500,000 bond. Her sentencing is set for Feb. 2. Before then, Judge Natasha Merle will consider a request from Salman’s lawyers to set aside the verdict and find her not guilty. They argue that the evidence was not strong enough to support the conviction.
Defense teams often ask a judge to overturn a jury’s decision after a trial. Judges rarely grant those requests.
The jury reached its decision after four days of discussion. On Tuesday morning, jurors sent two notes saying they could not agree. The judge told them to keep working toward a decision. They later reached a verdict and found Salman guilty of the only charge against her.
The jurors left together and declined to speak with reporters. Salman and her defense team also did not comment after the verdict.
Two Very Different Accounts
Prosecutors argued that Salman chose to support ISIS. They described her as a committed member of the group and said she received training with its all-women Nusaybah Khatiba brigade. They said the training included using an AK-47 rifle.
The government’s case relied on several pieces of evidence: a photo of a handwritten paper on her husband’s phone that appeared to approve her for a weapon; a short video of Salman holding and practicing with his AK-47; and her ISIS name, known as a “kunya.” Prosecutors said she chose a name that included a word meaning “foreign fighter.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Shami argued that Salman had lied after she surrendered to coalition forces in Syria. Shami said Salman gave the name she used when married and claimed she was born in Germany, rather than the United States.
“The defendant’s father was an ISIS fighter. Her husband was an ISIS fighter. And the defendant herself wanted to be a foreign fighter. She named herself ‘foreign fighter,’” Shami told the jury. She also said Salman made deliberate choices to help what she called a violent and brutal group.
Salman’s Testimony
Salman told the jury that her father tricked her and her family into going to Syria. She said he told them to get into a van for a visit with relatives. She fell asleep during the ride, she testified, and woke up in Syria.
Masked men carrying long guns told her to hurry into a crowded guest house. Salman said women and children there were being held against their will. She stayed at the house for three months before her father returned for the family.
Not long afterward, Salman said, her father arranged for her to marry an ISIS guard known as Abu Ali. She described the marriage as “horrible.” She said she could not leave the house unless her husband went with her, and that she had to serve him and his mother. Both, she testified, insulted her and criticized her appearance. Bombs exploded in the area where they lived.
Salman also explained why she sent her husband selfies. She said the phone had no cell service or internet access and could only send messages through a Bluetooth app. When she had a difficult day, she said, she tried to please him so she could make the day more bearable.
She denied receiving military training and said she had never seen the handwritten document that prosecutors presented.
The Defense’s Challenge
In a two-hour closing argument, defense lawyer Mia Eisner-Grynberg said the case was a “grave miscarriage of justice.” She argued that the government had not brought forward a witness who attended a training with Salman and had not proved that the alleged training took place.
Eisner-Grynberg called the training paper fake and pointed to differences between it and other similar documents. She also challenged the government’s reading of Salman’s ISIS name. The word prosecutors translated as “foreign fighter,” she argued, could instead mean “migrant.”
“It scares me to death that Halima can be convicted of a terrorist offense when there was no evidence of an offense,” the lawyer told the jury.
After the verdict, Eisner-Grynberg quietly cried at the defense table as Salman and her family embraced and wept.