After months of siege in the Syrian city of Raqqa, Belgian Bilal al-Marshuhi, a member of ISIS, decided to flee.He left his position as a religious policeman at dawn on August 29, 2017, and fled with his wife and son to a Kurdish checkpoint. Amal returned to his home country in Belgium, and the family members were immediately separated from each other, where his wife and child were taken to the nearest camp of relatives of the militants «Daesh», and Bilal was deposited with others «Daesh» prison near the city of Tabqa, where he was interrogated from He accepted US officials for his role in the organization, who is his closest comrade, and the arms industry. The 23-year-old told them that he used to attend Friday prayers at the Du Quibel mosque in Antwerp, Belgium, and that the imam of the mosque ended up fighting in Syria. Al-Marshouhi waited until he reached the age of 18 and crossed Turkey to Syria with his girlfriend and other acquaintances.
US soldiers transported Bilal to Ain al-Arab (Kobani) in northern Syria and from there to Arbil in Iraqi Kurdistan by helicopter. "I was alone there," Bilal said, recalling Foreign Policy in an exclusive interview. "It's very difficult. I couldn't sleep because of the bright lights." The young Belgian was one of the first “ISIS” transferred by the US military from Syria to Iraq after the liberation of the city of Raqqa, in addition to three others handed over to Iraqi judicial authorities, in violation of international law. "I met with Belgians there and cooperated with them. They told me they would take me to the local government now. I will wait for the judge and maybe they will take me to Belgium, maybe not," he said, referring to Belgian intelligence agents. But al-Marshouhi did not return to his homeland, and instead was transferred to Iraq, where he was subjected to a very difficult round of investigation.
Western governments treat returnees as a political issue
Western governments refuse to facilitate the repatriation of their citizens who have joined with ISIS, and after some 5,000 Europeans joined ISIS, it seems that the governments of these citizens do not want to deal with the files of their returnees. Iraqi researcher Hisham al-Hashemi said, "Except for Germany, all European countries seem not interested in returning their citizens accused of involvement with ISIS."
The issue seems to be more political than anything else. Parliamentarians dare not challenge public opinion in their country. In France, 89% of those surveyed by the French company Audox rejected the return of adults who joined ISIS, while 67% rejected Those surveyed return children. It seems that the issue of the return of these fighters who fought with ISIS needs the unanimity of the EU countries from the security point of view, and if one of those returning from Syria enters the Schengen area, all the countries participating in the agreement will be at risk due to freedom of movement within these countries. If one of them returns to Belgium, he can commit terrorist acts in Spain.
In fact, the return of these former “ISIS” reveals judicial weakness in these countries. Lack of evidence can lead to short periods of imprisonment and then return to normal life. If one of these terrorists commits an attack after being released from prison, he will face the political party that has agreed. On his return the consequences are dire.
Al-Marshouhi became a chess pawn in the international political chess match, rejected by his country and subjected to the judicial system of another country where he did not live at all. He claimed that Iraqi officials fabricated his confessions to show that he could be tried under the Iraqi judicial system. "They wrote that I was arrested in Mosul and forced to fingerprint my confession even though I surrendered in Raqqa," Marshouhi said.
A year later, al-Marshouhi attended his first hearing at the Rusafa Court in Baghdad. Three judges stood before the young Belgian in the dock and the trial appointed a defense lawyer who was not allowed to communicate with him before the trial. During the third hearing, before the Belgian consulate officials who attended the hearing, al-Marshouhi was sentenced to death by hanging for belonging to a terrorist organization, in addition to his involvement in the war against Iraqi forces in Mosul.
Later, the Supreme Court of Iraq published an alleged quotation from Abu Fadl Belgian (the title given by al-Marshouhi) to al-Marshouhi: “We fought in a fierce battle with Iraqi forces in Mosul. "I could survive and I was arrested inside Iraqi territory."
However, there is evidence to contradict this recognition. When the al-Marshouhi was interrogated in Syria, the information was collected under a special US military program, which collects information and evidence about foreign terrorist fighters for international missions there, the fingerprints of al-Marshouhi were taken while a military employee The American is taking a picture of him and he looks very tired. The dossier bearing information about him mentioned the location of his arrest in Raqqa, Syria, and did not mention Iraq from afar or near.
Al-Marshouhi was not the first European ISIS to be sentenced to death in Iraq. Belgian Tariq Gideon received the same verdict a year ago, as did 11 French “ISIS” who were transferred from Syria in January 2019. Berlin officials intervened with utter rejection of the death penalty. After the appeal, her sentence was commuted to 20 years in prison, and none have been executed so far.
Belgian officials, like their counterparts from other Western countries, claim that they will exert pressure through diplomatic channels against the death penalty against al-Marshouhi if they are to be executed after an appeal. "We always reject the death penalty," said Belgian deputy foreign ministry spokesman Nadia Benigni.
Pilar Cyprian is an investigative journalist based in Istanbul
Divergence in the treatment of European countries with those wishing to return
European Union member states deal with those who want to return home after the defeat of ISIS in various ways. The UK has stripped them of their citizenship, which happened with Shimaa Begum, a British teenager who traveled to Syria at the age of 15. Under the British Citizenship Act of 1981, amended in 2006, a person could be deprived of citizenship if it was for the “public interest” and if the intended person could obtain another nationality. The UK has stripped Shamima of citizenship, which is considered to be contrary to international laws, because she has never considered having her parents' passport from Bangladesh. Richard Barrett, Britain's director of counterterrorism, MI6, said: "Britain is not even thinking about taking back the children."
France and Britain are studying each case on a case-by-case basis, and the two countries have recovered 21 children so far, some of them orphans, since the fall of ISIS, but the return of adults is still out of the question. Lawyers in Iraq pointed out that there were diplomatic interventions in the judicial process, as was the case in the case of French Millenia Bugdeir, whose lawyer Nasser Eddin Madloul said: "The French ambassador in Iraq met with the President of the Supreme Court," and was sentenced to life imprisonment.
In addition, Germany, which has recently accepted the return of four children, says there is no specific strategy to recover its citizens who have joined ISIS. "We are looking at each case individually," a German diplomatic official said. The issue has become a contentious issue in the international coalition that has fought against ISIS. The United States has exerted great pressure on the EU countries to reclaim their citizens. "We're still trying to get European countries to reclaim their citizens who fought with ISIS," said Col. Ryan, a coalition spokesman.
Mechanism to circumvent the judicial vacuum
In fact, terrorists have been transferred from Syria to Iraq, as a mechanism to circumvent the judicial vacuum in northern Syria, and given that the Kurdish-led authority in northern Syria, led by the Kurdish Democratic Union Party, is not diplomatically recognized from all over the world, the Kurdish courts They cannot prosecute foreign ISIS fighters. In addition, European governments fear that placement in ISIS jails poses a high risk of escaping from prison at any moment, as in Derek. The reality between the Iraqi and Syrian borders.
The most famous transfer of ISIS terrorists took place in January, when 11 French terrorists were transferred to Iraq. French President Emmanuel Macron spoke during the visit of Iraqi President Braham Saleh to Paris. Macron disavowed the matter, saying it was up to Iraq. They were arrested while conducting operations against the Iraqi army.
Foreigners who have fought with ISIS and who have been transferred from Syria to Iraqi prisons have a wide variety of personal files. One is Lahcen Ghabbouj, 59, a French man who said he came to Raqqa in search of his son, but is serving a life sentence. Belgium has witnessed the recruitment of large numbers of its citizens in the organization «Daesh» so that it became the first source of participants in the organization «Daesh» in Europe in relation to the population. Some 413 Belgians have traveled to Iraq and Syria, 125 of whom have returned so far, and programs to alleviate extremism often appear ineffective, because their presence is not mandatory and does not ease the punishment for combatants. The only programs that have produced a good result so far are those offered by imams who study moderation by urging the elimination of extremist ideology, as does Imam Ahmad Zardao at the Antwerp Mosque.
«ISIS» Belgium is at the forefront among European countries
The history of ISIS indicates that its members from Belgium are at the forefront of European countries. They have introduced advanced technologies on the battlefield, using drones, anti-aircraft missiles equipped with a temperature sensing mechanism, and even Belgian fighters have set up their own checkpoint. They forced the local population to pay high taxes, but their crimes should not deprive them of their Belgian citizenship, and their imprisonment in prisons outside their own country also posed a security risk.
There is the case of Belgian Osama Attar, which confirms that the imprisonment of these Belgians in the prisons of another country makes them more vulnerable to other extremist ideologies, where it is easier to teach extremist ideas there. Ramadi was imprisoned one year later, and then in Abu Ghraib, where he spent seven years with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who later founded ISIS. It seems that during this period he became more radicalized and became more professional in terrorism, as he was the mastermind of the terrorist operations that struck Paris in November 2015 and the Brussels attacks in 2016, which resulted in the deaths of 130 for the first and 32 for the second, according to French intelligence. Had Attar been in Belgium's prisons, he would not have had the opportunity to spend dozens of hours with terrorists, and would not have learned all this militancy and murder.