Turkey sends home Dutch woman accused of Islamic State membership

Turkey has repatriated another alleged member of the so-called Islamic State in its custody, returning a Dutch woman and her child to the Netherlands on Sunday.

According to Dutch newspaper The Telegraaf, the 28-year-old woman, identified as Kawtar S, had traveled to Syria in 2013 to join the Islamic State.

After the military defeat of the terror group, the woman was living in Syria’s Al-Hol refugee camp, which houses dozens of other alleged Islamic State members, it added.

Kawtar is now being held at Vught, a high-security prison in the Netherlands, while her child has been handed over to social workers, The Telegraaf reported.

In November, Dutch prosecutors said two women with alleged ties to the Islamic State were arrested upon their arrival at Amsterdam Schipol Airport. The women were traveling with two children, aged 3 and 4.

Ankara has repatriated over 110 foreign fighters in its custody, especially those with membership in the Islamic State.

Turkey’s Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu has warned that Ankara would return foreign Islamic State detainees to their native countries, even if their citizenship had been revoked.

According to Soylu, Turkey currently has around 1,200 foreign Islamic State members in its prisons, including relatives of the suspects.

“We are not a hotel” for any country’s Islamic State members, he said at the time.

Many nations in the European Union or abroad fear that due to a lack of evidence of criminal wrongdoing, Islamic State supporters could be quickly released once they appear in court after returning home.

Source: Kurdistan 24