Two Finnish men in Islamic State prisons in Syria according to ISIS brides

Two women living in an Isis camp in Syria say that two Finnish men are being held in an Isis prison. The revelations emerged when Yle foreign correspondent Antti Kuronen interviewed five women during a visit to the al-Hol camp run by the extremist group Isis.

One of the women said that her brother had been imprisoned. “I know that my brother is in prison, but I don’t know where. I have tried to find out but I don’t know where he is,” the woman said.

Another woman, Sanna, said that a younger Finnish man was also being held in detention. “Kurds attacked a building and grabbed the boy. He is still in prison. He was 17 years old when he was taken. He wasn’t fighting but had been at home when they barged in and took him prisoner,” she explained.

Sanna noted that the younger man had been held one year ago and is now 18 years old.

“The brother of the woman I interviewed had apparently gone to Syria independently and voluntarily, but according to information obtained by Yle, the other – who is now 18 – came to Syria with his parents when he was 13 or 14,” journalist Kuronen said.

Finland’s security and intelligence police Supo declined to comment on the number of Finnish Isis prisoners or their circumstances.

Foreign men detained by the extremist group are held in closely-guarded prisons, where estimates put the number of foreigners at more than 1,000.

Not much is known about the conditions at these facilities. However Kuronen gained some insight into the situation during an interview 18 months ago with a European man who’d been imprisoned by Isis at a security services facility while working on a documentary about Raqqa in northeast Syria.

“The man was brought in, hooded and chained, from some distant prison. He was made to sit in front of me before they took the hood off. It was completely different from the camp where the women I interviewed are,” Kuronen recounted.

“The man said that the prisons have a kind of mini-caliphate, so people are probably from all over Europe, the former Soviet Union, North Africa and elsewhere,” he added.

So far, no foreigners have been put on trial in Syria. The local administration run by Syrian Kurds would like to deport prisoners back to their homelands.

However trials are held for Syrians, and convictions are being handed down. A large number of locals found innocent have also been freed. The Kurdish administration would like to establish an international tribunal in the area, so they can try foreigners.

“The Kurdish view is that these people have come from Europe and elsewhere to terrorise the area. And when the war is over the Kurds will end up having to look after them,” Kuronen noted.

Iraq has offered to set up trials for all foreigners involved with Kurdish SDF troops and imprisoned in Syria. Four French nationals who belonged to Isis were sentenced to death in Iraq last Sunday. US-backed forces had originally detained the men in Syria.

On Tuesday, Iraq handed down capital punishments to an additional two French citizens held by ISIS.

Source: YLE