Samantha Sally

Samantha Marie Sally, also known as Samantha Elhassani (born 1984 or 1985), is an American woman who lived with her husband and children in the Islamic State between 2015 and 2017. Sally has maintained she was tricked into traveling to the Islamic State by her husband, and was not a supporter of the group. In 2020, she was sentenced to six and a half years in prison in the United States for providing financial support to a terrorist group. She was later released on April 1 2024, after serving 3 years, 4 months in prison (1,239 days)

Early life Sally grew up in Lowell, Arkansas. She and her sister, Lori, were raised in a strict household and their parents became Jehovah's Witnesses when they were very young. Their parents forbade music, television, and the celebration of birthdays and secular holidays. They were not allowed to participate in extracurricular activities at school and their mother even discouraged them from doing homework. The two girls faced corporal punishment and, according to Lori, were sexually abused by an adult relative. Both sisters were eventually disfellowshipped from the Jehovah's Witnesses.

Sally did not complete high school; her parents removed her from school in the eighth grade when she was fourteen, so she could work full-time. When she was fifteen, she was raped by an older man. She married her first husband at age sixteen in 2001, but her husband was abusive and violent and the marriage was short-lived.

Sally had one son in 2007, while living in Oklahoma. She had met her then-partner in 2004, Sally moved to Elkhart, Indiana in 2011 to live with her sister, Lori, after being laid off from a job in Oklahoma. The two worked at a package forwarding company, where Samantha met Moussa Elhassani, a brother of Lori's husband. His family owned the company. Elhassani, a non-observant Muslim, had been born in Morocco and moved to the U.S. in the early 2000s. Sally and Elhassani began dating, and married on July 23, 2012. In June 2013, Sally had a daughter. Over time the relationship became emotionally and physically abusive, and Elhassani abused drugs and was unfaithful. Sally says it was only at this point that she realized that not only did her husband and his brother intend to join the Islamic State, but that Elhassani planned to take their daughter as well. She said she didn't contact the authorities because she was afraid he would flee with their daughter.

On July 24, 2018, Sally and her children were flown back to the United States, where Sally was arrested. Sally's children were taken into state care. Her oldest son was put in the custody of his father, and her other three children were in foster care until 2020, after which time her parents took custody of them. In 2021, Sally's parental rights were terminated. In 2022, her parents legally adopted her children. This was in connection to the story she'd told her FBI handler about going to Morocco for surgery. She could have faced up to 45 years in prison. A doctor hired by her defense team diagnosed her with post-traumatic stress disorder and major depressive disorder.

On November 9, 2020, Sally was sentenced to six and a half years in prison.

In 2024, Jessica Roy published a book on the lives of Samantha Sally and her sister Lori, titled American Girls: One Woman's Journey Into the Islamic State and Her Sister's Fight to Bring Her Home.