ABU DHABI // Alaa Al Hashemi’s journey began as a young bride aged 20, when she married an overbearing bully who introduced her to the world of violent extremism.
It continued for 10 years, fuelled by indoctrination in the teachings of Al Qaeda leaders, video lessons on how to kill and how to make a bomb, and regular dispatches of cash to terrorist organisations abroad.
It ended on Monday at the state security division of the Federal Supreme Court in Abu Dhabi, where Al Hashemi, 30, was sentenced to death for stabbing to death a young expatriate nursery teacher in Boutik Mall on Reem Island.
The murder, on December 1 last year, shocked the country and cast a pall over celebrations for National Day the following day.
The victim, Ibolya Ryan, was the mother of 11-year-old twins who lived with her in Abu Dhabi and a 13-year-old daughter who lived with her ex-husband in Vienna. She had taught in nursery schools for 15 years.
To Alaa Al Hashemi, herself the mother of six children, the eldest 10 and the youngest only nine months, Ryan was nevertheless the enemy.
It was an enmity that had been growing since Al Hashemi married Mohammed Al Habashi Al Hashemi in 2005. He was a controlling man who isolated her from her relatives and set her on the path to extremism.
Through lectures available online, she listened to the teachings of Al Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab Al Zarqawi. She visited an online forum called Al Minbar Al Jihadi Al E’lami – the Jihadi Media Platform – which promoted such ideology.
Al Hashemi watched many videos on how to slaughter people, and how to create homemade bombs. More recently, she was also taught how to replicate an ISIL flag.
She was also sending money to terrorist organisations. She gave her husband Dh150,000, which he transferred to a man named Musleh, an Al Qaeda member in Yemen.
Al Hashemi’s husband had himself given Dh1 million to the same man to commit acts of terrorism in the UAE.
Her husband was arrested on November 21 last year. After his arrest, Al Hashemi burnt an ISIL flag that she had kept at home. She also hid an external memory drive that contained the terrorism-related video clips and pictures.
She told prosecutors that she committed the crimes of which she was accused because her husband had been taken into custody by State Security.
She was “seeking vengeance” for her husband and wanted to create fear, especially for American, British and French expatriates, she said.
In preparation, the killer did her homework. The day before the murder, Al Hashemi travelled by taxi to Boutik Mall to inspect what would be the scene of her crime.
She then took a taxi to the Ali and Sons building on the Corniche and identified the home on the sixth floor where, not content with one murder, she intended to plant a bomb.
About 1pm on the day of the crime, Al Hashemi drove a white Nissan Armada, on which she had covered two digits of the number plate to avoid detection, to Boutik Mall.
Dressed from head to toe in black, she picked up a copy of a free magazine, went into the toilet and waited for a victim.
One mother from Britain who came in did not know how close she came to death. Al Hashemi thought of killing her, but changed her mind because the woman had a baby with her.
Soon after, Ryan walked in and Al Hashemi asked her for help to get to a disabled toilet.
Inside the cubicle, Al Hashemi repeatedly stabbed the nursery teacher with a kitchen knife. As the victim tried to grasp on to the knife, Al Hashemi pushed her against the wall and stabbed her in the chest and legs.
She then dropped the blood-covered weapon and ran off towards a lift.
Ryan’s screams had attracted the attention of mall security guards and shoppers, but they did not stop Al Hashemi. She left the mall and drove to the Corniche building.
On the way, Al Hashemi sent a text message to a member of the Royal Family that said: “The mujahideen have reached the midst of your home.” She then discarded the mobile phone.
From another phone, she called the police to report that a woman had been stabbed, but mistook Reem Island for Saadiyat.
She then planted her bomb outside the home of Dr Mohammed Hassan Hassan, an American-Egyptian doctor, then lit the fuse and left.
Thankfully, because Al Hashemi had botched the construction of the bomb, it did not detonate, and the doctor’s 14-year-old son found the device.
Al Hashemi was arrested on the night of December 2 after armed police raided her house.
Her trial began in March at the Federal Supreme Court, where she claimed that a mental illness was behind her actions.
She said she was "possessed with evil spirits" and she would regularly see "ghostlike people".
During her trial she mainly remained silent, but occasionally burst into tears or bouts of laughter, startling onlookers in the court.
But a medical report commissioned by the court proved she was sane and responsible for her criminal actions.
Of all the details of the crime to emerge during the trial, perhaps the most poignant was the last time Ibolya Ryan’s children saw their mother. She told the 11-year-old twins she had to make a quick visit to the toilet, left them at a cafe in Boutik Mall and said she would be back soon.
She never returned.
aalkhoori@thenational.ae
