Is Europe ready to face freed ‘terror’ convicts?
‘Conducive for jihadi violence’
PARIS, May 10, (AP): Over the next two years, terrorism convicts will walk free from European prisons by the dozens — more than 200 inmates who largely formed the first wave of jihadis streaming to Syria and Iraq, dreaming of an Islamic caliphate not yet established.
In all, about 12,000 Europeans left to fight with the Islamic State group and al-Qaeda beginning in 2011; about a third of those are now believed to be back home, mostly living freely. Some are awaiting trial, but most never even faced serious charges due to insufficient evidence.
And many more were thwarted from traveling to the war zone entirely, left to stew and, sometimes, plot at home.
How much of a threat do these avowed extremists living throughout Europe pose, and how equipped are authorities to deal with them? The tactics thus far have been, at best, improvised.
The impending releases of jihadi veterans could be considered “a fourth wave of returnees,” according to Rik Coolsaet, a scholar at Belgium’s Egmont Institute who has done extensive research on violent extremism.
“There are a number of personal frustrations and motivations that have pushed the kids in their journey to ISIS that we now have to address,” Coolsaet said. “If we don’t address it now, the environment will remain as conducive for this kind of jihadi violence.”
Farid Benyettou, a former influential crusader who has now publicly renounced extremism, fears Europe is not braced to cope with the hordes of believers roaming free.
Once nicknamed the “imam Voltaire” after the high school he left to become a backroom preacher to young Muslims in his Paris neighborhood, Benyettou has written a book detailing his descent into becoming a propagandist of Islamic extremism. He views the coming round of prison releases with an apprehension born of firsthand experience.
Prison
Benyettou, now 38, spent four years in prison on terrorism charges, alternating between recruiting fellow inmates to the cause and furiously studying for his degree. It took years for him to disavow the ideology he once spread so effectively. Now, he says extremism sows only death.
Among the group of young men he once led are Cherif and Said Kouachi, who gunned down 12 people at the offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in 2015. Another follower blew himself up in Iraq; yet another died in Syria fighting for the Islamic State group.
The cell he once led epitomizes the urgent question Europe now faces: Are the terrorism convicts on the verge of freedom like Benyettou, the Kouachis or somewhere in between?
“These guys who are convicted today or who are awaiting trial will get out one day,” Benyettou said in an interview with The Associated Press. “And that’s the issue, in fact: What kind of preparations will there be for their release?” Terrorism prison sentences in Europe until very recently averaged about six years, compared to 13 years in the United States, according to data from Europol.
Since the Charlie Hebdo attacks, the sentences have crept up across the continent, but still remain well below US levels.
“The danger is the risk of recidivism. We should not be too quick to believe certain terrorists who say they are repentant,” Catherine Champrenault, the Paris prosecutor general, said in a recent interview with the newspaper Le Monde.
France, which has been struck repeatedly by Islamic State fighters and sympathizers, will be freeing 57 inmates — about half its current population of terrorism convicts. In Britain, 25 inmates are due for release — fully three-quarters of its terrorism convicts. In Belgium, 80 acknowledged foreign fighters already are free and as many as 44 others will be joining them. In Spain, 21 of 34 returning extremists already were free as of late last year. And in Bosnia and Kosovo, every single jailed foreign fighter will go free.
Comparison
In just those countries alone, the total runs to more than 200, according to the AP’s count. By comparison, a Congressional Research Service report last year said 50 “homegrown violent jihadists” were to be released by the end of 2026.
And Europe’s actual number is undoubtedly higher because not every country releases its data — most notably Germany, which had nearly 1,000 residents make jihadi trips but has not released any comprehensive figures on convictions or releases.
The most recent attack blamed on returning foreign fighters was in March 2016, when an Islamic State cell of jihadis set off suicide bombs at the Brussels airport and in the metro.
Made up of veterans from Islamic State in Syria — as well as friends and family recruited to the cause — the network already had attacked a Paristo-Brussels high-speed train in August 2015 and bars, restaurants, a concert hall and a sports stadium in an orchestrated assault on Paris in November 2015. In all, the cell killed 162 people.
Still, the overwhelming majority of returning jihadis have not been arrested and have caused no harm.
Many of the homegrown jihadis are young men from poor backgrounds who have limited education and feel cut off from the society that surrounds them. A startling number lack the presence of a father.
In trial after trial, few of them say they have abandoned the cause of jihadism. Rather, they say, the cause abandoned them. Most described traveling hundreds of miles only to find themselves in the midst of internecine fights for territorial control, rather than battling Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces or helping civilians.
Once they leave prison, no programs or policies govern them.
France has applied a range of postrelease constraints, ranging from requiring those freed to periodically check in with authorities — as is the case for Benyettou — to perpetual home detention for former prisoners like Kamel Daoudi, who was convicted in a plot to bomb the American embassy in 2005 and has been under house arrest since his 2008 release.