Swedish woman jailed for enlisting son in Syria
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – A Swedish court sentenced a woman to six years in jail for not preventing her son from fighting along with ISIS in Syria, where he was killed.
“The 49-year-old Lina Ishaq was convicted of aggravated of war crimes, violations of international law and for not stopping her son, then aged 12 to 15, from being recruited and used as a child soldier for ISIS in the armed conflict in Syria,” the Stockholm district court said in a statement yesterday.
“She has not taken adequate steps to stop this, neither has she wanted to stop it, but his role as a child soldier had been in accordance with her convictions,” the court added.
Ishaq, who returned from Syria in 2020, is the first person known to have been charged in Sweden with aiding the recruitment of her own minor son as a child soldier.
The court pointed out that from August 2013 to May 2016 the boy allegedly took part “in hostilities performed by armed groups, including the terrorist organization ISIS”.
The boy died in 2017, without providing the cause of death, according to the court.
Around 300 Swedish residents, a quarter of whom are women, joined ISIS in Syria and Iraq, mostly in 2013 and 2014, according to the Sapo intelligence service.