Emilie König, one of the best-known French jihadists repatriated from Syria on Tuesday, was remanded in custody after being indicted by an anti-terrorism judge.
Emilie König, one of the best-known French jihadists repatriated from Syria on Tuesday, was placed in pre-trial detention after being indicted by an anti-terrorism judge, AFP noted during a hearing before a judge of freedoms and detention (JLD). This 37-year-old woman, accused of having recruited for the Islamic State (IS) group and called for attacks in the West, was the subject of an arrest warrant and was indicted on her arrival in Paris for association with criminal terrorist wrongdoers.
“I am very tired”, breathed in the box this brunette with a gray complexion, dressed in a gray fleece and black pants, after the announcement of the deliberation by the judge of freedoms and detention.
Left for Syria in 2012
The magistrate, to whom Emilie König had said she wanted to find a “woman’s life”, told her that the investigations would continue “to retrace her career”. Originally from Lorient (Morbihan), she left for Syria in 2012.
Regularly appearing in propaganda videos, she had been placed by the UN on its blacklist of the most dangerous fighters.
She is the mother of five children, including three born in Syria, who were repatriated to France in early 2021. In an interview with AFP in April 2021 from the Roj camp, she said she wanted to “return to France”. “She intends to cooperate fully with French justice,” her lawyer Emmanuel Daoud told AFP. “She came back to explain herself and to try as quickly as possible, according to a deadline that she does not control, to see her children again”, added Me Daoud, stressing that she was “fully aware of having caused much suffering to his family”.
Thirty-five minors and 16 mothers repatriated on Tuesday
Thirty-five minors and 16 mothers present in jihadist prison camps in Syria since the fall of IS were repatriated on Tuesday, responding to a repeated request from NGOs and families who say they hope for an end to the “inhumane” policy that consisted of repatriating certain children only, on a “case by case” basis.
Eight mothers were placed in police custody on Tuesday “in execution of a search warrant” and “eight (others) are the subject of an arrest warrant”, explained the national anti-terrorism prosecution in a press release. A 17-year-old minor and seven women were taken into custody at the DGSI, said a source familiar with the matter. The eighth was placed in police custody at the Anti-Terrorist Section (SAT) of the Paris police headquarters.
Among the mothers targeted by an arrest warrant, in addition to Emilie König, six other women were indicted on Tuesday for criminal terrorist association and for some of them also for moral or material abandonment of a minor by ascendant , said a source familiar with the matter on Tuesday evening. They were all placed in pre-trial detention following hearings before the liberty and detention judge.
An eighth woman will be presented to an examining magistrate on Wednesday, her arrest warrant having been notified to her only at the end of the afternoon due to medical treatment, according to the same source. This woman has colon cancer. This is the first such massive repatriation to France of children and mothers since the fall in 2019 of the IS “caliphate”.