Turkish appeals court frees ISIS member
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – The Turkish Supreme Court of Appeals released a member of the Islamic State Organization (ISIS) citing a lack of evidence, according to Nordic Monitor website.
Ahmad al-Dahir, a Syrian national, was identified as an ISIS operative by the Turkish counter-terrorism bureau in 2019.
Al-Dahir was a bomb maker and was connected to an ISIS bomb expert Taha Abu Muhammad Aqil, who operated in Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor, north and east Syria.
Al-Dahir was tried and convicted by the Ankara 13th High Criminal Court, and his conviction was upheld by a regional appellate court. However, on July 5, 2021, Turkey’s Supreme Court of Appeals overturned his conviction citing a lack of evidence.
This case represents yet another example of how the bulk of successful ISIS convictions, already rare in the lower courts, have been thrown out by senior judges who appear to follow the lenient guidelines of the Islamist government of President Erdoğan when it comes to a crackdown on jihadist groups, according to Nordic Monitor.
On October 2019, the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan said around 5,500 ISIS members are jailed in Turkish prisons, of which half were foreign nationals. Yet, in the same month, the Minister of Justice Abdülhamit Gül stated that 1,163 ISIS members are held in Turkish prisons.
Although the United States seeks to persuade countries to take back their citizens from northeast Syria, rehabilitate them, and even prosecute them, some of those participating in the Global Coalition have reservations about returning their citizens.
During the past two years, the international attention has focused on prosecuting those detained in terrorism cases of foreign nationalities who are in the AANES’ prisons.