Trials of Islamic State foreign fighters in Syria to start in days
Trials of thousands of foreign Islamic State fighters imprisoned in Syria are set to begin within a “few days”, local authorities said as they attacked their partners for failing to help repatriate the terrorists.
The Kurdish administration in the northeast of Syria, responsible for holding the terror group since they destroyed the so-called caliphate, told The Telegraph the prosecutions would start this week.
It came as they blamed the international community – parts of which armed and supported them in the fight against Islamic State – for dragging its heels in helping bring the fighters to justice.
In a statement at the weekend announcing their intention to begin trials, the Kurdish authorities also warned that the security situation in the jails was deteriorating.
The trials were unexpectedly announced by the US-backed Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), which is outside of Damascus’ control, on Saturday.
The announcement left western diplomats on the back foot and did not appear to have been negotiated with Washington, their main backer. The US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken just two days before had called on countries to repatriate their citizens and not “burden” affected countries with them.
Western diplomats said that the trials were not discussed on the sidelines of the anti-Islamic State coalition summit in Saudi Arabia.
The authority blamed the “failure of the international community” in not responding to their years-long calls for repatriation of foreign fighters or for an international tribunal to put them on trial.
Around a dozen British and former British suspected Islamic State fighters are estimated to be in prisons in northeast Syria, while almost 50 Islamic State-affiliated women and innocent children are in squalid camps. They include Shamima Begum, who was stripped of her citizenship.
A spokesman for the AANES told The Telegraph that only the prisoners will be put on trial while they try to find a solution for the camps.
It is not immediately clear what criteria the authorities are setting for who goes on trial. Guards have been known to rally male children from the camps and send them to adult prisons when they reach adolescence.
Analysts – as well as the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militia who secure the prisons and camps – have been warning for years that the fragile situation is a ticking time bomb for an IS resurgence. Public trials could be a prime time for another prison break.
The trials, authorities said, will be “open, free and transparent,” but rights groups have raised concern of whether they will have due process in reality.
Islamic State fighters, and their wives and children, from over 60 countries were captured by the SDF during battles with the terror group. More than 10,000 fighters – including 2,000 foreigners – have been held in makeshift prisons since Islamic State’s territorial defeat in 2019. Some 50,000 women and innocent children are crammed into camps that are rife with extremism.
“There are only a small number of British men in these prisons, but it’s impossible to know how many as they are held incommunicado,” said Katherine Cornett, head of UK-based campaigning group Reprieve’s North-East Syria team. “They are in a legal black hole which makes it very hard to understand how fair trials could possibly occur. The only realistic way to ensure justice is to repatriate them and try them in British courts, where there is a case to answer.”
Western diplomats working on the complex issue told The Telegraph that the announcement had caught them with surprise and they were urgently trying to get in contact with the AANES.
The spokesman said that the trials are expected to begin in the coming days. The court will be open to rights organisations, journalists and members of the public, he said. Lawyers will be provided and paid for by the administration, though he did not clarify whether the accused would be able to bring their own lawyers.
The cases that will be brought against the first defendants are being prepared now.
Repatriation has been slow – particularly for the male fighters in prisons – but four years after the territorial defeat, the UK is now the only major western power still taking a hardline stance not to bring them home for trial. Canada was forced this year to repatriate British-born “Jihadi Jack” after the British Government stripped him of his citizenship. The US also took high-profile British detainees Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh.
The statement from AANES called on the international community to help facilitate the trials.
“The US-led coalition against ISIS, the UN, and detainees’ countries of origin should support fair trials in NE Syria, in home countries or a third country. Anything less is not only a violation of these detainees’ rights to due process. It’s also an injustice to ISIS victims,” Letta Tayler, a counter-terrorism expert at Human Rights Watch said on Twitter.
Source » msn
