Former Islamic State fighters should finally be tried in Syria, according to an announcement from the Kurdish autonomous region in the northeast of the country. Among these former jihadists, many Westerners, including around sixty French people whom the state refuses to repatriate.
With our correspondent in Erbil, Theo Renaudon
” Open, fair and transparent trials is what the Kurds of northeast Syria promise to the thousands of former fighters of the Islamic State group. This announcement comes despite what the Kurdish administration has been asking for for four years: a large international tribunal to judge the crimes of the Islamic State. But this desire has never found its echo with the great powers.
Among them are some sixty French jihadists detained since the fall of Baghouz in 2019, whom France categorically refuses to repatriate. For years, the government has been saying that it wants these men to be tried where they committed their crimes.
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Meanwhile, the prisons are overcrowded, the Kurdish guards overwhelmed by the IS group which finds its power in Syria, with the equivalent of one attack per day since the beginning of the year. Penitentiary centers are prime targets.
So what will happen to former jihadists? The death penalty is abolished by the Kurds of Syria. They therefore risk remaining in prison. Their judgment will have no international value, the Kurdish region of Syria not being recognized by anyone. This announcement looks like a new deaf cry launched to the international community.