Tricked into ISIS at 17: A Brooklyn jury now decides her fate

Halima Salman was 17 when her father told the family they were going to Turkiye in 2017. Instead, he put her in a van without saying where they were going, drove into Syria, and the van was surrounded by men with guns, her lawyer told a jury Thursday. That image is the cornerstone of the defense for the Brooklyn-born US citizen, who is now accused of receiving weapons training from the Daesh group. Her lawyer, Mia Eisn, painted Salman as a victim of paternal betrayal, not a jihadist recruit, as jurors began deliberating her fate in a New York courtroom.

Prosecutors have alleged that Salman received weapons training from Daesh, the designated terrorist organization that once controlled vast swaths of Syria and Iraq. The stakes could not be higher for Salman, who grew up in Brooklyn and holds US citizenship. A conviction on material support charges can carry decades in federal prison. But the defense's narrative introduces a deeply uncomfortable question for the jury: if a teenager was trafficked by her own father into a war zone and forced to marry a fighter, at what point does she become accountable for what happened next? Salman was not just a bystander, prosecutors say; she was trained to use weapons. The jury must now decide whether that training was a voluntary act or the product of coercion by a family member she trusted.

The case sits at the intersection of several legal and political currents that have shaped how the US handles citizens who ended up in ISIS-controlled territory. Federal law makes it a crime to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, and that charge is notoriously broad, covering everything from weapons training to providing personnel or even advice. Over the past decade, the Justice Department has used this statute to prosecute dozens of Americans who traveled to Syria and Iraq, arguing that presence in Daesh territory, combined with participation in its activities, is enough to establish support. Courts have overwhelmingly upheld these prosecutions, but a key element always remains: the defendant's knowledge and intent. Salman's defense is asking the jury to believe that she lacked both because her father engineered the entire ordeal, effectively entrapping her within her own family.

The defense's story also highlights a troubling pattern that has emerged in terrorism cases: the role of family members as both enablers and exploiters. In Salman's telling, her father was not a radical ideologue but a manipulative parent who handed his teenage daughter to armed men in a foreign country. This is not the typical profile of an ISIS recruit, and it raises broader questions about how the justice system treats minors who are transported into conflict zones by relatives. International law recognizes child soldiers and forced marriage as grave human rights violations, yet US domestic terrorism statutes often have little room for such nuance. If Salman is acquitted, it could signal that juries are willing to consider coercion as a complete defense, even in cases involving designated terrorist groups. If she is convicted, it would reinforce the government's position that individual responsibility begins once you cross into enemy territory, even if you got there against your will.

For executives and boards, the case may seem remote from the boardroom, but it carries real lessons about risk, compliance, and the limits of personal control. Companies with global supply chains and international workforces increasingly face situations where employees or their family members become entangled in conflict zones. The same legal principle under debate here, whether someone acted voluntarily or under duress, applies in corporate contexts ranging from sanctions enforcement to anti-bribery compliance. A conviction would remind risk officers that regulators and prosecutors often take a strict-liability approach: ignorance of the circumstances, or even coercion by a third party, does not always shield an individual or an organization from liability. An acquittal, meanwhile, would encourage defense counsel in white-collar cases to dig deeper into the personal histories and family dynamics that may have driven otherwise law-abiding people into dangerous situations.

The jury's decision will also reverberate beyond Salman's own fate. It comes as the US government continues to grapple with the question of what to do with Americans who remain in Syrian camps or who have already returned home. Some are being repatriated and prosecuted; others are being denied return, leaving them in limbo. This trial offers a rare public test of whether the American legal system can tell the difference between a willing terrorist and a coerced teenager. The image of a Brooklyn girl surrounded by armed men in a desert van is a haunting one, and it cuts directly to the heart of how far personal agency can be extinguished by circumstance. As the jury deliberates, the rest of the country watches for a verdict that could define the boundaries of guilt for a generation of ISIS cases.

Ultimately, this is a story about trust, betrayal, and the limits of criminal liability. Salman's father, the person legally responsible for her welfare, is the same person who allegedly delivered her into the hands of violent extremists. Her lawyer has asked the jury to see her as a survivor, not a soldier. Prosecutors see a woman who made choices after arriving in Syria, including undergoing weapons training. The distinction matters not just for Salman, but for every future case where the line between victim and perpetrator is blurred by family, force, and the chaos of war. The verdict, when it comes, will be a landmark moment in how America answers that question.