Anne Diana Clain, elder sister of Fabien and Jean-Michel Clain, who were the French speaking ISIS group, was sentenced Wednesday in Paris to nine years in prison for trying to join them in Syria with her husband and four children, between 2015 and 2016.

Anne Diana Clain, elder sister of Fabien and Jean-Michel Clain, who were the French speaking ISIS group, was sentenced Wednesday in Paris to nine years in prison for trying to join them in Syria with her husband and four children, between 2015 and 2016. The correctional court added a two-thirds period of probation to Ms Clain, 44 years old.

"Willingness to go to Syria"

She was convicted of the criminal offense of criminal conspiracy as her husband Mohamed Amri, a 58-year-old Tunisian, sentenced to ten years with two thirds of security and permanent ban of French territory. The president of the Criminal Court, Isabelle Prévost-Desprez, pointed out their "relentlessness to want to go to Syria". "This project has failed against your will, you have never voluntarily given it up," said the president to the attention of the defendants, not even after the attacks of 13 November 2015 claimed from Syria by Anne Diana's brothers Jean-Michel and Fabien Clain became propagandists of the Islamic State organization.

"You dragged your children on this deadly journey until your arrest in Turkey on the Syrian border," insisted the president, denouncing facts "of extreme gravity". When the judgment was pronounced, the couple's relatives, including their children, burst into tears. The prosecutor had required ten years in prison against both.

Anne Diana Clain, 44, had left France in August 2015 with Mohamed Amri, their three children and his son from a previous union, all minors. They had failed to reach the areas held by the IS, where was already the whole family of Anne Diana, including her brothers.

An Islamist "utopia"

Intercepted on the Turkish-Syrian border in July 2016, they were expelled in September 2016 and imprisoned in France. Mohamed Amri assured that there was no question of settling in Syria, only to visit the Clain family and possibly "convince" them to return. The court sanctioned an attitude of "denial, even provocation".

Anne Diana Clain, for her part, explained that it was a question of going to live with one's family in an Islamist "utopia". She claims today to have been blinded by her brothers and the ideology of IS. For the court, his "taking away" "may be a prerequisite for a positive evolution." She was sentenced to a three-year socio-judicial follow-up with obligations.

In the face of a sentence that "does not take into account Ms. Clain's evolution," her lawyers Martin Desrues and Xavier Nogueras indicated that they would appeal.