ABSTRACT
Fifty-four-year-old Malika el-Aroud is serving an eight-year sentence for terrorist activities in Belgium. In May 2010, a Brussels court sentenced her to prison plus a €5,000 fine for establishing, leading, and financing a terrorist group. According to Judge Pierre Hendrickx, Aroud used the internet to attract vulnerable web surfers, as well as to indoctrinate and recruit them for jihadist activities. Her website, Minbar-sos.com, routinely received 1,500 hits a day.2 The court also found that Aroud had demonstrated “reckless disregard” for the deaths of young Europeans who went to Afghanistan and Iraq to engage in jihad at her urging. In private, one investigator noted: “We knew she would eventually make a mistake and this time, this time, we finally had her.”3 After years of placing her under suspicion and house arrest, and subjecting her to investigations by the secret police, Belgian officials apprehended Aroud on a technicality.
