In what is being touted as a historic case, a Swedish court has convicted a female Islamic State member for human trafficking and facilitating the rape of children in Iraq and Syria.
The woman, who is said to be in her sixties and was previously married to a high-ranking Islamic State leader, was convicted and sentenced by the Solna district Court — but only to a sentence of six years and ten months.
The woman took her two young daughters to Syria in 2014 and 2015 in order to live in the “caliphate” then controlled by the Islamic State terrorist organisation, broadcaster SVT reports.
“The woman’s purpose in doing so had been to help establish and live in an Islamic state ordered under a strict Salafist interpretation of Islam, governed by the Islamic State,” the Solna District Court stated.
It emerged during the trial that the woman had taken her underage daughters to the Islamic State territory in order to marry them off, and she was accused by the court of sexually exploiting them.
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— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) October 6, 2021
A man originally from the no-go Stockholm suburb of Jarva was convicted alongside the woman. He is said to have married one of her daughters when she was under 15 years old.
The man had previously been convicted of raping children between 2013 and 2015 but was only given a short eight years and ten months sentence.
Prosecutor Karolina Wieslander commented on the verdict in the woman’s case, saying: “It’s a very important judgment. In Sweden, this is the first conviction of its kind.”
While some Islamic State women have been charged for crimes committed overseas in Iraq and Syria in Sweden, including one charged with forcing her own son into becoming a child soldier, very few convictions have been reported relative to the numbers who travelled to the erstwhile caliphate.
Many have claimed the reason for the lack of convictions is the level of difficulty in pursuing such cases, with Swedish terror expert Magnus Ranstorp urging the government not to repatriate Islamic State women due to the lack of sufficient laws to prosecute their activities.
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— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) April 14, 2019
Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com.
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