KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 17 ― Datuk Seri Rohani Karim urged the authorities today not to tar women married to militants as accomplices to terror acts, saying the wives should be given the chance to clear her name.

The women, family and community development minister was commenting on a Statistics Department officer who was recently sentenced to jail for helping her husband get medical attention after he was allegedly injured while battling alongside Islamic State (IS) militants in Syria.

Rohani said that she was “very sure” the woman convicted had no prior knowledge of her spouse's militant activities, but was made to bear her husband’s sins indirectly.

“But I really hope that the authorities don't just see her as an accomplice because it is a natural process of a wife so she's trying to say that she didn't know and such, but they should give her space for a defence,” Rohani told reporters at the Putra World Trade Centre here.

She also advised husbands not to get carried away by IS ideologies as they were not just putting themselves at risk but also jeopardising their entire family.

“My advice to husbands that are pushed to get involved with IS is to think about it at length. Because it's not only you that's involved as it will involve your entire family.

She added that “there are many other ways to sympathise but there is no need to get involved with all this IS and such”.

She also urged all women to come forward and inform the relevant authorities should they see family members getting influenced by IS as reporting it early on may help in “saving” them.

Government servant Poziah Harun, 42, was sentenced to six months' jail at the Kuala Lumpur High Court on Tuesday for reportedly harbouring her terror suspect husband Zulkarnain Ghaz Abd Ghani.

She reportedly knew he had committed terrorist acts, after she helped the latter seek treatment at a polyclinic on September 15, said to be for injuries he sustained during the war in Syria.

On August 19, Poziah was arrested at her home for failing to report the return of her husband to Malaysia as well as for hiding the cause of his injuries, despite having full knowledge of her husband's circumstance.