Wafa Koraichi

In 2017, the Court of Milan, under art. 270 bis c.p., sentenced Wafa Koraichi; a young woman of Moroccan nationality born in 1992. She was sentenced for terrorism-related crimes with 3 years and 4 months of imprisonment and with expulsion from the Italian territory at the end of the sentence and revocation of her parental authority.
The story of the young resident of Baveno (VB) is closely linked to Alice Brignoli and her husband Mohamed Koraichi’s. Wafa Koraichi is in fact Mohamed’s sister and therefore Alice’s sister-in-law. The Italian couple played an important role in Wafa’s radicalisation process.
Her brother and Alice’s departure for Syria in February 2015 seems to have had a profound effect for the then young Wafa. Although she had already mingled with circles linked to jihadist extremism, that event brought further ideological confirmations regarding how people lived in Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s caliphate. It was considered to be a “heavenly” place where, according to this rhetoric, it was possible for all to live and practice their own religion entirely and without constraints of any kind.
Wafa’s father and her husband repeatedly tried to steer her away from dangerous extremist groups and ill-intentioned individuals, including her brother, who became mujahid in Syria. These circles were described by Wafa’s husband as “The Daeshes”. Despite the arguments and quarrels had with both her father and her husband, Wafa kept in touch – via telephone or WhatsApp messages – with Alice Brignoli and Mohamed Koraichi in Syria. Her brother (nicknamed Simohamed) would send her messages containing photographs of his sons dressed in military gear coupled with audio recordings of the eldest son reciting typical Quranic passages in an increasingly correct Arabic. These exchanges were received with enthusiasm and pride by Wafa as well as her sister Meryem and her friend Salma Bencharki.
The collected wiretaps provide us with a clear ideological and behavioural profile of the young woman from Baveno who further fomented her sister Meryem and her friend Salma, justifying and extolling the actions of Mohamed, Alice and their children in Syria, as well as declaring the acts of martyrdom and violence perpetrated by the Islamic State terrorist group (both in Syria and in Europe) as lawful. She also indoctrinated Meryem by supporting all those jihadist concepts that can be found in several Italian judgments regarding the caliphate’s jihadism through commenting on every event she became aware of regarding Mohamed and Alice in Syria, but also through videos and news about the Islamic state.
However, Wafa’s role was not limited to actions related to the ideological strengthening of newly radicalised individuals. Indeed, at the request of her friend Salma, she also agreed to act as an intermediary between her mujahid brother in Syria and Salma and her husband, Abderrahim Moutaharrik. The Bencharki-Moutarrik couple’s goal was to receive the tazkiyah (recommendation from an affiliate) from a member of the Islamic State.
Thus, through Wafa and her brother Mohamed, Abderrahim Moutaharrick received an audio message – also called “bomb poem” – on WhatsApp, containing the approval of a Sheikh to join the terrorist group,  exhorting him to carry out violent actions on the European territory.
After her sentence, Wafa Koraichi was expelled from the Italian national territory in August 2019.