Danish woman faces jail after violating travel ban for fighting against Isis with Kurdish groups in Syria and Iraq

Joanna Palani, 23, violated a one-year travel ban imposed by Danish authorities

Joanna Palani, a Danish-Kurdish woman, left her politics and philosophy degree to fight against Isis in Syria and Iraq (Facebook)

A Danish woman who volunteered in Syria and Iraq to fight against Isis faces six months in prison for violating a travel ban.

Joanna Palani has been taken into custody while Copenhagen City Court hears her case, which has divided Denmark.

The 23-year-old insists she poses no security risk and had been fighting with Kurdish groups aligned with the US-led coalition, which includes Denmark.

But she has fallen foul of laws allowing the imposition of travel bans and seizing of passports for Danes planning to join foreign conflicts – on whatever side.

Palani’s lawyer, Erbil Kaya, told the Berlingske newspaper his client admitted violating a one-year travel ban imposed by Danish authorities.

He confirmed she travelled to Doha on 6 June 2016 but it was unclear if she travelled onwards from Qatar.

Palani is due to return to court on 20 December, when she faces six months in prison for contravening the ban.

It was imposed in September 2015, after the former politics student returned from fighting for Kurdish forces in Syria and Iraq.

Palani, whose father and grandfather were Peshmerga fighters, is of Iranian Kurdish ancestry and moved to Copenhagen as a toddler after being born in an UN refugee camp in Ramadi, Iraq, during the Gulf War.

She told Vice she left university in autumn 2014 to join the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in Syria, wanting to defeat Isis, President Bashar al-Assad and “fight for human rights for all people”.

Kurdish Peshmerga fighters celebrate after recapturing Fadiliya village in Nawaran, north of Mosul (Reuters)

Palani fought for the YPG for six months before moving to Iraq to fight for the Kurdish Peshmerga. Both groups have been supported by the US and allies in the battle against Isis, being given military and air support as the ground arm of the international coalition’s bombing campaign.

As well as fighting on the front line against Isis militants, she claimed to have been part of a battalion that freed women and children held as sex slaves by the so-called Islamic State near its stronghold of Mosul.

Palani was active on social media and news of her role spread in Denmark. When she was given a fortnight off by the Peshmerga to visit her family in 2015, the Danish authorities cracked down.

A police notice warned Palani her passport had was not valid and would be revoked if she left the country, an offence punishable with a jail sentence.

The former student has criticised the Danish authorities for pursuing her under laws targeting Isis militants and other extremists.

“How can I pose a threat to Denmark and other countries by being a soldier in an official army that Denmark trains and supports directly in the fight against the Islamic State?” she wrote on Facebook when she lost her passport, according to a translation by The Local.

Denmark’s Security and Intelligence Service (PET) said at least 115 Danes have travelled to fight in Syria and Iraq in the past five years, with most believed to have joined Isis.

On social media, there have been signs Palani is willing to settle in Copenhagen, asking friends for help finding a full-time job in the capital in October.

She is one of countless European, American, Canadian and Australian volunteers who have joined anti-Isis groups in Syria and Iraq, with several known to have been killed.

Among them is a British and Irish faction of the YPG calling itself the Bob Crow Brigade, part of the foreign International Freedom Battalion.

But like the vast majority of parties in both long-running conflicts, the YPG and Peshmerga have been accused of war crimes and human rights violations.

An Amnesty International report accused both groups of evicting non-Kurdish ethnic groups including Arabs and Turkmen, and destroying their homes in abuses possibly amounting to war crimes.

Several European countries have warned that prosecutions for foreign fighters will not be limited to Islamist groups, with at least one British Army veteran reporting being detained for fighting with the YPG under the Terrorism Act.

“Anyone who does travel to these areas, for whatever reason, is putting themselves in considerable danger,” a spokesperson for the Home Office said.

“Those who travel abroad in order to participate in conflicts may be committing criminal or terrorism offences and could face prosecution when they return to the UK.

“There are many crimes committed abroad – including murder – which courts in the UK can prosecute.”