A German schoolgirl-turned-jihadi bride has been reunited with her mother in Iraq, where she said she was an “idiot” for joining ISIS after escaping from home.
Linda Wenzel, 17, fled her hometown of Pulsnitz last year by posing as her mom and boarding a flight to Turkey, en route to Syria. She was smuggled into Iraq and ended up in Mosul.
In July, she was captured by Iraqi soldiers who dragged the filthy, dazed and wounded teen from the former ISIS stronghold.
German TV station “Das Erste” captured the emotional reunion at the Palace of Justice in Baghdad, where the so-called “Belle of Mosul” and her mom, Katharina Wenzel, 48, stared at each other momentarily before embracing.
“I don’t know how I came up with the stupid idea to go to the Islamic State. I have ruined my life,” said the tearful teen, wearing a headscarf and a Islamic kaftan robe, the UK’s Telegraph reported.
Her mother, who was accompanied by her other daughter, Miriam, handed Linda a cuddly stuffed toy with a Christmas hat to remind her of better times they spent as a family during the holiday season in Germany.
Linda, who has been held in an Iraqi prison as she awaits trial, said she left her home because of problems with her family after she decided to convert to Islam.
“You could have talked about it,” her mother told Linda during the meeting.
“I couldn’t talk to you,” Linda replied. “You said you didn’t accept that I had joined Islam.”
She said she fell in love online with a Chechen fighter who convinced her to join him in the so-called caliphate in Syria.
Linda was drawn by “rosy” ISIS videos “where men and their wives and children wandered together through parks … they baked bread together. It was like being in another world.”
They couple tied the knot while she was in Turkey and he was on the phone from Syria along with a witness.
“There was no ceremony, no party,” Linda said, adding that she called her husband “Mohammed.” “I don’t know (his last name) –something Chechen.”
She said she kept busy with domestic duties — cooking and cleaning the apartment she shared with her husband, who was killed in an airstrike five months later.
“I kept busy with myself, trying not to go mad when you hear a bomb somewhere and the shrapnel falls on the roof,” Linda said, adding that she was forced to carry dead babies.
She said she asked herself: “Why did you come here, you idiot?”
In January, she sent a message to her mom saying: “My husband is dead because of you. Because you pay for the bombs here with your taxes.”
She also paid tribute to Anis Amri, the Tunisian asylum-seeker who killed 12 people and injured 56 others when he drove a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin in December 2016.
Iraqi security sources told the Telegraph that Linda had been trained as a sniper and was found with a gun.
“I don’t know how such a thing works,” she insisted, adding that she had been brainwashed but never fought for ISIS.
Next month, she will face trial on charges of being a member of a terrorist organization. Iraqi authorities refuse to extradite her to Germany.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has said that Linda might face the death penalty.
“You know teenagers under certain laws, they are accountable for their actions especially if the act is a criminal activity when it amounts to killing innocent people,” he said in September.
Linda said she can recover from her physical injuries from airstrikes, but laments that she wrecked her future.
“In Germany everyone knows me, everyone knows what I look like, I can’t go anywhere without being recognized,” she said.
At the end of the meeting, Miriam hugged her sister and said: “I’d like to stuff you into my suitcase, close it up and take you with me.”
“I’d very much like to come with you,” Linda replied, the UK’s Guardian reported. “I’m done with Iraq.”