France sentences French woman to 10 years in prison for joining ISIS in Syria

The Special Criminal Court in Paris sentenced its citizen Dent Carol Son, who returned from ISIS families' camps in North and East Syria, to 10 years in prison after convicting her of belonging to ISIS mercenaries. 

The court also ordered her to undergo five years of probation and psychological treatment.

The woman traveled to Syria in July 2014 at the age of 18, accompanied by her older brother. She was arrested by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in December 2017 on the banks of the Euphrates River, according to the government.

Son, now 30, returned to France on July 5, 2022, as part of the first large-scale repatriation of children and their mothers since SDF ended ISIS's territorial control in 2019.

The trial revealed that the woman had been influenced by extremist ideologies on social media and justified her joining ISIS by citing traumatic experiences, including being gang-raped at the age of 14.

The judge explained that the defendant, who comes from a traditional Christian family in the suburbs of Paris, had associated with people in Syria who were known for their atrocities, including those fighting in units that included some of the perpetrators of the November 13, 2015, Paris attacks.

Among those was the prominent French preacher Salah Eddine Guitton, whom she met on Facebook and found attractive and kind. She married him upon arriving in Syria, but their marriage lasted only about ten days before he was killed in battles.

Her second marriage was to a member of ISIS's intelligence service. She wrote to her mother at the time that he was a man who "eliminates traitors." He is currently imprisoned in Iraq.

Among the women who make up more than a third of the approximately 1,500 French people who went to Iraq and Syria, 160 have returned to date, according to the attorney general. Since 2017, 30 of them have been tried before the Special Criminal Court, while others have been tried before ordinary criminal courts.

J.J