France: Three Female ISIS Returnees Sentenced to Prison

Three French women, all converts to Islam, have been sentenced to prison by a court in Paris for having joined ISIS in Syria. One of them is the niece of brothers Jean-Michel and Fabien Clain, also French converts, who are believed to have been killed in Syria.

The article below from Le Figaro is translated by Fousesquawk.

Syria: Three French returnees sentenced to 10 to 13 years in prison

By Le Figaro with Agence France Presse

58 mintues ago

The Paris Special Criminal Court has sentenced three women, including the niece of the Clain brothers to prison terms of 10-13 years for belonging to the Islamic State group

Jennyfer Clain, 34, is sentenced to 11 years imprisonment. On Thursday, the prosecutor of the National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office (Pnat) requested 13 years for her. Her mother-in-law, Christine Allain, 67, is sentenced to 13 years imprisonment, two-thirds minimum to be served. The prosecution had requested 15 years.

The third defendant, another daughter-in-law of Christine Allain, Mayalen Duhart, 42, is sentenced to ten years imprisonment with an order of deferment (delay in reporting to prison), in conformance with the  (prosecution) closing argument. All of them are also sentenced to (post-custodial) social-judicial supervision. 

“Ideological commitment is completely behind her”

The lawyer for Jennyfer Clain, Attorney Guillaume Halbique, welcomed a “balanced” decision for his client. “The fact of not having a period of security* will allow us to consider filing a request for reduction of sentence,” he added, indicating that the niece of the Clain brothers  “a priori” will not appeal the decision. “The ideological commitment is completely behind her and has been for a number of years,” her attorney claims.

*Translator’s note: A period of security in French jurisprudence is a period of time in which a person sentenced to prison cannot appeal for an adjustment of sentence.

On Friday morning, Jennyfer Clain expressed her “sincere and profound” apologies to all of the “direct and indirect victims, in France, in Syria, in Iraq, and elsewhere” of the jihadists and to her 5 children. “I am not a victim; the victims are the others, those the organization I belonged to tortured and massacred: I am responsible,” Mayalen Duhart declared before the court retired to deliberate.

The three women had been on trial since September 15 for having joined ISIS in 2014 along with their children. They remained in Syria until 2019 before being arrested and returned to France.