French court inquires refusal to repatriate family from Syria

PARIS: A French court has ordered an inquiry into France’s refusal to repatriate the wife and children of a jihadist fighter held in Syria, judicial sources said, increasing pressure on Paris to bring home citizens held in the war-torn region. The 30-yearold woman, identified as Estelle K., and her three children, all under 10 years old, surrendered to Kurdish forces in September 2017. They had left with her husband to join the Islamic State insurgency in 2014. The husband, who was transferred from Syria to stand trial in Iraq, was sentenced to death in June. Earlier this month, a judge opened a long-sought investigation by the woman’s relatives into charges of “failure by the French authorities to put an end to an arbitrary detention,” one source told AFP this week. Relatives of French citizens who went to join the jihadist group in Syria and Iraq say France has a legal and moral obligation to allow their return home to stand trial.

The death penalty is illegal in France, and critics say leaving the families of French fighters in Kurdish-held camps in Syria exposes them to inhumane treatment and psychological trauma. Their return is all the more urgent, critics say, in the wake of Turkey’s offensive against the Kurds in northeast Syria, which could allow foreign IS fighters to escape, and their families fall prey to other jihadist groups. “Along with human rights violations, today there is the risk that these families are taken by the Islamic State group — France will have knowingly taken responsibility for this risk,” lawyers for the mother of Estelle K, William Bourdon and Vincent Brengarth, said in a statement.