The Brussels Criminal Court sentenced a Belgian woman to five years in prison for membership of the terrorist group Islamic State (IS), just a few months after she voluntarily returned from Syria after nearly a decade.
The 31-year-old female IS fighter Fatima C. returned home through Charleroi Airport last February, where she was immediately arrested by police, according to De Standaard.
On Tuesday, the Brussels Criminal Court sentenced her to five years in prison and a €9,000 fine despite prosecutors themselves requesting a lighter sentence of three years in prison, according to Le Soir and Bruzz.
However, part of the sentence was suspended under strict conditions, meaning she will effectively serve three years and four months behind bars if those conditions are respected.
"What is important is that this is still 40 months of prison, which is rather severe compared to the prosecution's submissions," said Le Soir's Julien Bialas to The Brussels Times, who attended the hearing.
According to the journalist, the judgment was delivered very quickly, leaving little time for explanation inside the courtroom.
Illustrative image of a courtroom. Credit: Nicolas Maeterlinck/ Belga
"Fatima did not immediately understand," Bialas told The Brussels Times. "Her lawyer had to explain the decision to her because everything happened very quickly."
He added that she appeared "somewhat in shock" and began crying after the ruling was pronounced.
Born into what the court described as a deeply radical Islamist environment, Fatima C. reportedly left the capital with her entire family in 2015. She had been radicalised by controversial Belgian preacher Jean-Louis Denis, aka Jean-Louis le Soumis, who convinced her to join IS.
Her youngest sister was reportedly "given" to a local emir by her father in Syria, with whom she became pregnant. Towards the end of her pregnancy, the mother brought the younger sister back to Belgium, where she gave birth.
After the birth of the child, the mother and her younger sister reportedly decided to go back to Syria, but police arrested them in January 2016.
The trial began in 2017, when all the C. family members were sentenced to prison, while Fatima was sentenced in absentia for IS membership.
During hearings held in April, the defence reportedly focused on what it described as a life lived "under influence", and could not be held fully responsible. Her lawyers also argued that she no longer represented a danger to society and deserved a second chance.
Illustration image of an Islamic State fighter. Credit: Belga
"The defence insisted on her life trajectory and the fact that she had been influenced by others at several moments," Bialas explained. "According to the defence, she no longer represented a danger to society, and there were signs suggesting she could be given another chance."
The suspended part of her sentence comes with strict conditions, including a ban on leaving Belgium, mandatory professional training and regular reporting obligations to the police.
Her lawyers are now analysing the judgment in detail before deciding whether to appeal.
Reintegration
For Michaël Privot, terrorism expert and founder of the Muslim Council of Belgium, the case perfectly illustrates the difficulty of applying a "one-size-fits-all approach to women returning from Syria".
"In general, I believe each case must be evaluated separately, and we should avoid systematic decisions in one direction or the other," he told The Brussels Times.
"Particularly for women, a significant number were caught up in situations that surpassed them and became hostages to impossible circumstances, without any possibility of return," he added.
"For those who are readmitted, there absolutely needs to be solid social, security and psychological follow-up, while actively working on reintegration," Pivot argued.
