A former American schoolteacher teacher nicknamed the ‘Empress of ISIS' who led an all-female death squad including children has been sentenced to 20 years in prison.
In a plea deal with US prosecutors, Allison Fluke-Ekren admitted to one count of conspiring to provide support to the terrorist group.
She told a judge in a federal courtroom in Alexandria, Virginia, she didn’t know that some of the 100 women she led and trained to use guns and explosives were as young as 10-year-old.
During her years of working with ISIS and others to wage a violent jihad, Fluke-Ekren discussed plans for terrorist attacks in the West and trained other women on how to use AK-47s, grenades and suicide belts, according to her plea agreement.
The 42-year-old, who grew up on a farm in Overbrook, Kansas, received the maximum possible sentence after pleading guilty to the charge linked to her “terrorism crime spree”.
During her sentencing, the court heard harrowing accounts from her own children, who described her as a “monster’” who tortured them for sexual pleasure.
Prosecutor Raj Parekh called Fluke-Ekren the “Empress of ISIS” who “brain washed young girls and trained them to kill.”
“She became a warped visionary for ISIS,” he said, telling the court she had a mission to create the all-female battalion.
“She was attracted to death and destruction,” the prosector added.
Parekh also said that Fluke-Ekren had repeatedly lied to the US government and refused to cooperate, saying she could have been “a goldmine of intelligence.”
One of her daughters, Leyla Ekren, who helped the US government in its case against her mother, testified her mum had abused her and her siblings and married her off as a “sex slave”.
“Keep in mind what you were like at 10 or 15,” Ekren said, telling the judge that she was given away as a bride to an ISIS fighter, who she referred to multiple times as “my rapist”.
She said her mother allowed her abuse to gain more power in ISIS.
In a letter, Fluke-Ekren's son told the judge: "My mother is a monster who enjoys torturing children for sexual pleasure. My mother is a monster very skilled in manipulation and controlling her emotions to her advantage.
”My mother is a monster without love for her children, without an excuse for her actions.”
Fluke-Ekren was arrested in Syria earlier this year before being transferred to US custody.
The former teacher, who also used the name Umm Mohammed al-Amriki, moved to Syria in 2012 and married a "prominent" ISIS leader, court documents said.
She can reportedly speak four languages.
"Fluke-Ekren's alleged ISIS-related conduct includes, but is not limited to, planning and recruiting operatives for a potential future attack on a college campus inside the United States and serving as the appointed leader and organiser of an ISIS military battalion located in Syria, known as the Khatiba Nusaybah, in order to train women on the use of automatic firing AK-47 assault rifles, grenades, and suicide belts," court documents filed in January said.
Prosecutors say she provided ISIS members with services, which included lodging, translating speeches made by ISIS leaders, teaching extremist ISIS doctrine and training children to kill.
