On Friday, the French judicial authorities charged five women with belonging to a terrorist criminal association who were returned on Tuesday from jihadist detention camps in Syria to France, and placed them in pretrial detention, according to judicial sources.
Some of them are also being prosecuted for abandoning a child, according to the source.
Three women and a boy, who turned 18 on Friday, are also scheduled to appear before the anti-terror investigation judges at the Paris court.
The eight women whom the French judiciary had issued arrest warrants once morest, along with the boy, were placed in pretrial detention on Tuesday.
Seven of the women were transferred to the headquarters of the General Directorate of Internal Security in France, while the eighth was transferred to the anti-terror department of the Paris police.
The women and boy are among 35 minors and 16 mothers who were returned to France from jihadist detention camps in northeastern Syria.
On Tuesday, seven women whose arrest warrants were issued appeared before investigative judges and were charged with belonging to a terrorist criminal association, and one of them was charged with abandoning a child.
On Wednesday, an eighth woman diagnosed with colon cancer appeared before the judges on the two charges, following she underwent medical examinations, according to the source.
They were all placed in pretrial detention.
This is the first mass repatriation of jihadist children and their wives to France since the fall of 2019 and the fall of the “caliphate”, as the bloody attacks in France on November 13, 2015 were planned and the trial finally ended.
Prior to that, the list of persons who were returned to France was limited to a few children, and the French authorities examined “individually” the file of each of them.
Among the women is Emily Koenig, 37, of French origin, who moved to Syria in 2012. She is suspected of recruiting people to join the ranks of the Islamic State, in particular.
Before the latest repatriation, 120 French women and regarding 290 children were languishing in Kurdish-controlled camps in northeastern Syria, according to AFP on Friday, the French coordinator for intelligence and counter-terrorism, Laurent Nunez.
In 2019, seven out of ten French people opposed the return of jihadist children, according to a survey conducted by the Odxa Dentso Consulting group for Le Figaro and France Info.
For three years, a debate has been taking place in France over the fate of jihadist children, and lawyers, parliamentarians and non-governmental organizations are calling on the French authorities to return them home, as did neighboring European countries.
Germany, and a short time ago, Belgium, returned a large part of the nationals of the two countries who are in camps in Syria that contain war refugees and jihadist relatives.
