A former ISIS bride who ran off to Syria and toted an AK-47 has gone on trial for Islamist terrorism in Germany.

Accused Kristin Karolin L. appeared before the Higher Regional Court in the city of Jena, Thuringia State, on 21st March.

The Federal Prosecutor’s Office accuses the 26-year-old from Erfurt of membership in a foreign terrorist group, violation of weapons laws, and complicity in bodily harm.

Prosecutors say she converted to Islam in 2014 aged 18 and decided to join the so-called Islamic State a year later.

She entered Syria via Turkey and travelled to a camp in the IS stronghold of Raqqa, where she attended faith and language courses.

She married the IS fighter Semih U. under Islamic law and had a child with him.

As well as taking care of the household chores, she allegedly lured other women from Germany and illegally possessed an AK-47 assault rifle and a shotgun.

After her husband’s death, Kristin L., who went by the name Umm Musa al-Almani, and her child were taken captive by Kurdish fighters in March 2019.

Prosecutors accuse her of encouraging the mistreatment of a fellow prisoner by shouting: “Hit her, knock her out!”

In December 2022, Kristin L. and other German women were flown back home and arrested after landing at Frankfurt Airport.

Kristin L. has remained in custody ever since, while her child is reported to be in the care of relatives.

The next hearing is scheduled for 28th March and will be the second of seven, with a verdict expected in May.

Her lawyers say she suffers from an anxiety disorder.

Kristin L. ran off to Syria in March 2015 with fellow German Leonora Messing, then aged 15, after the two met online.

Messing was flown back to Germany in December 2020 and arrested after landing at Frankfurt Airport.

A court in Halle convicted Messing, then 22, of membership of a terrorist organisation in May 2022.

She was also found guilty of violating the Weapons Act and the War Weapons Control Act for possessing a Kalashnikov assault rifle and a pistol with ammunition.

Messing married IS secret service agent and fellow German national Martin Lemke, who already had two other wives, and had two daughters with him.

Prosecutors accused her and Lemke, aged 30 in May 2022, of buying and enslaving a Yazidi woman in 2015.

But the trial judges said this could not be proven, and Messing was cleared of aiding and abetting crimes against humanity.

The trial, which began in January 2022, ended with Messing being handed a two-year suspended sentence.