A British mother who took her toddler son to Syria, has been found guilty of membership of so-called Islamic State.
Tareena Shakil, 26, is the first British woman to return from the self-declared caliphate to be convicted of the offence.
Shakil, of Birmingham, has also been found guilty of encouraging acts of terrorism through messages posted on Twitter. She denied the charges.
She had admitted travelling to Syria.
But following a two-week trial at Birmingham Crown Court, the jury rejected her claim that she had only wished to live under Sharia law.
‘Martyr’ wish
The jury was shown her tweets, messages and photographs, including images of the black flag of IS and passages calling on people to “take up arms”.
She had also stated her wish to become a “martyr”.
Shakil, of Beechfield Road in Birmingham but formerly of Burton-upon-Trent in Staffordshire, posed her son for pictures wearing an IS-branded balaclava after secretly running away to Syria in October 2014.
She told the court it was because he “loved hats”.
Her defence team maintained she went to Syria with the toddler to escape an “unhappy family life”.
Source:https://www.bbc.com
