A Dagestani woman was sentenced to a long prison term after returning from Syria.

Lazai Kazimagomedova, who left for Syria in the spring of 2015, returned to Russia ten years later. A court in Dagestan sentenced her to eight years in prison.

Lazai Kazimagomedova's case was heard by the Suleiman-Stalsky District Court of Dagestan. It found her a member of an illegal armed group operating on the territory of a foreign state (Part 2 of Article 208 of the Russian Criminal Code carries a sentence of eight to fifteen years in prison).

According to the republic's FSB, Kazimagomedova lived in the village of Ashaga-Stal in the Suleiman-Stalsky District of Dagestan. In April 2015, she left for Syria. There, according to the prosecution, she joined the ranks of an international terrorist organization.

According to the investigation and the court, Kazimagomedova "prepared food, sewed uniforms, cared for the wounded," and provided other assistance to the militants in the organization. "After the liquidation of the illegal armed group, the woman moved to a refugee camp in Syria, from where she returned to Russia in April 2025," the Southern News Service quotes the intelligence agency as saying on February 5.

Kazimagomedova spent some time in the Al-Hol camp for displaced persons in Syria and returned to Russia via Turkey, according to the publication "Youth of Dagestan."

Upon arrival in Russia, Kazimagomedova was detained by security forces. She attempted to appeal the eight-year sentence from the district court to the Supreme Court of Dagestan, but it upheld the first-instance decision, and the sentence has now entered into force.

According to the case file on the court's website, Kazimagomedova's case was heard from May to September 2025, with seven hearings. The appellate court considered the convicted woman's appeal on December 25.

Lazai Kazimagomedova, a native of the village of Kullar in the Derbent district of Dagestan, turned 62 in July 2025, according to her entry in the Rosfinmonitoring register of terrorists and extremists. Her information was added to the register in February 2021; on the same day, her namesake, Zbedat Kazimagomedova, born in 1958 and a native of the village of Ashaga-Stal in the Derbent district of Dagestan, was added to the list, according to a message from a Telegram bot tracking updates to the list.