Thread by @jenanmoussa

1/ Last week ISIS woman Omaima Abdi was sentenced in Hamburg.

On Aug 3rd it's 7th commemoration of Yazidi genocide.

So this is good time to write up my personal take on how I cracked Abdi's story.

In a nutshell: I'm proud but also worried for my safety. akhbaralaan.net/news/special-r…

2/ As my story is in Arabic, let me tweet some parts out in English. You can of course also use google translate on the Arabic piece.

3/ When I obtained, through a source in Syria, the content of a mobile of an ISIS member, my heart was in my mouth. 1000s of pics, videos +other files. Everything was there. I knew this potentially was a big story, but I never realized it would be this big.

@akhbar

4/ As I did not know who the phone belonged to, I went through all pics/files for clues. Many images of a woman, often with kids. Pics taken in Germany, Turkey +Syria. ISIS flags, people with guns +ISIS propaganda. Also personal docs. Reoccurring name in docs was: Omaima Abdi.

5/ At that time, I had no idea who Omaima Abdi was. So, I started to investigate. I went another ten times through all the pics and the files. I googled, I called sources, I compared pictures, I looked in pdf files for info. I endlessly checked and re-checked.

@akhbar

6/ My preliminary conclusion was: Phone belonged to Omaima Abdi, a Salafi jihadi woman from Hamburg, Germany. She travelled to ISIS areas in Syria with her toddlers. In Syria she married Denis Cuspert aka Deso Dog – one of Germany’s most notorious &ruthless ISIS extremists.

7/ But I still didn’t know if Abdi was alive or not. Maybe she was still in Syria or got killed there? If not, where could she be now? Then I found LinkedIn profile of "Omaima Abdi". It showed a pic of Abdi. Acc to profile, she was translator +event organizer in Hamburg, Germany.

8/ Obviously, on her LinkedIn account there was no mention of her ISIS past. It seemed Omaima Abdi had quietly returned from ISIS in Syria and was again living a normal live in Germany. As if nothing had happened.

@akhbar

9/ But a journalist needs more than a LinkedIn account, you need real evidence. So I flew to Hamburg. Abdi's phone showed various addresses. I rented car +waited for days in front of those places. Long hours of staring from car, hot coffee, cheap sandwiches. But I didn't see her.

10/ But one afternoon I suddenly saw the woman who I knew from all those pictures on the phone. Omaima Abdi got in front of my eyes out of a car and walked to a house. The address of that place was the same as one of the addresses I found in her phone.

11/ Now that it was clear Abdi indeed was alive and again living in Germany, I investigated further. After her return from ISIS in Syria, she was never arrested, never even questioned by German authorities. It seemed nobody in Germany knew or cared she had been with ISIS.
@akhbar

12/ Before I published tv piece on Abdi’s lost Syria phone, I called her up to give her chance to respond. She became angry, hung up. After story aired on @akhbar, a huge outcry in German media. Nobody knew Abdi was widow of Denis Cuspert or that she was back in Hamburg for 3yrs.

13/ After I published my story on @akhbar (see link), more info came out. After Abdi left ISIS territory in Syria, she went to German embassy in Ankara. There she said that she had been in Syria but wanted to return to Germany and needed travel documents.

14/ Abdi then flew without problems back to Germany. So German authorities knew in 2016 that Omaima had been with ISIS in Syria and that she was on her way back to Hamburg. She was never questioned upon arrival. Either they didnt care or they didnt have evidence to charge her.

15/ That changed after my story was aired. Because thousands of pictures and documents from a phone don’t lie. Suddenly there was enough evidence to charge her. In September 2019, Abdi was arrested by German police at her home. She was charged and sentenced in 2020 to 3,5 years.

16/ This year she was for a 2nd time indicted as the German authorities found evidence that Omaima Abdi used two enslaved Yadizi women to clean the house she occupied in Raqqa. Last week she received additionally six months jail time for accessory to slavery.

17/ The Abdi-trials are over now. Normally a suspected terrorist should have been caught by authorities. But this time it was a journalist who did that job. My report led to arrest +conviction of an ISIS woman, the widow of Denis Cuspert, who otherwise would have escaped justice.

18/ But there's a downside for a reporter who outs ISIS members. Because it's clear that Abdi views me for the rest of her life as an enemy. My tv report was aired in court. And during the trial, Abdi said that everything went wrong for her from moment Moussa published her story.

19/ So from my side there is not only defiance to keep reporting on ISIS but also fear &worry for my own safety. I only have a pen and a laptop as a "weapon", while groups like ISIS use violence to silence journalists.

20/ And obviously this story was never a personal one to me. If some other ISIS member than Omaima Abdi would have lost his or her phone, I would have reported on that person.

21/ So although I’m proud my story made a difference, I am also aware of the risks that come with reporting on ISIS. I hope of course for the best. But unfortunately, I have to live with that worry every day.

22/ Thank you for following this thread. That's it for now. Hope this was useful. Good night you all.