France jails 3 women for up to 13 years over links to ISIS in Syria
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – A French court sentenced on Friday three women to prison terms of up to 13 years for joining the Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria and taking their children with them, including the niece of two notorious jihadist propagandists behind the 2015 Paris attacks.
According to AFP, Jennyfer Clain, 34, was sentenced to 11 years in prison for membership in the group. Her uncles, Jean-Michel and Fabien Clain, claimed responsibility for the Paris attacks that killed 130 people. Her sister-in-law, Mayalen Duhart, 42, received a 10-year sentence, while Duhart’s mother, 67-year-old Christine Allain, was handed 13 years.
During the trial, Clain expressed remorse, apologizing to “all victims of jihadist violence in France, Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere.” She admitted to failing her children, five of whom were taken to Syria, where one was born under ISIS rule in Raqqa.
Duhart, who brought four children to Syria, also expressed regret, saying, “I am not a victim. The victims are those who were tortured and massacred by the organization I belonged to.”
The three women traveled to Raqqa, ISIS’s de facto capital in Syria, in 2014. After ISIS lost control of the city in 2017, they remained with retreating militants before attempting to cross into Turkey in 2019. Turkish authorities detained them with nine children, eight of whom were born in France, and later expelled them to France.
The Clain brothers were killed in 2019 during operations by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) against ISIS in eastern Syria. They were later sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment in France.