A 32-year-old woman, who had followed her husband to the ranks of the Islamic State organization in Syria where she spent four years, was sentenced on Wednesday (November 29th) in Paris to two years in prison, a sentence covered by the duration of her pre-trial detention.
Salima R., who appeared free, was sentenced to five years in prison, three of which were suspended, followed by five years of socio-judicial monitoring. So she won't go back to prison.
"Right-of-way"
She was found guilty by the Special Assize Court of "conspiracy to commit terrorism" and endangering her children by taking them to live in a war zone in Syria. The 2016-year-old said she had lived under the "sway" of her husband - a senior in the IS administration, who was killed in <> by a US drone - but admitted that she had adhered to the ideals of the jihadist organisation on her own initiative, while maintaining that she had stayed away from any violence. "I didn't realize ISIS's involvement in terrorism," she said.
She said she regretted putting her first two children, aged three years and five months, at risk when they left for Syria, but stressed that she had been careful not to expose them to images of IS abuses. According to a DGSI investigator heard by the court, Salima R. participated in the "jihad of the belly" advocated by IS to ensure the sustainability of the self-proclaimed caliphate in the long term. She had six children: two born in France before she left for Syria, three born there, and the last born in France when she was in detention. All have been placed. The representative of the prosecution had asked for 13 years' imprisonment, stressing that the accused could not "blame everything on her late husband".
It "considerably downplays its involvement ... since it does not recognise that it has adhered to jihadist ideology," she said. For the defence, Adélaïde Jacquin stressed on the contrary that Ms R. had indeed "gone into radicalisation of her own free will", but that the sentence had to be "adapted to the person she has become today".