Sweden’s court arrests woman for allowing son to fight for IS – Tidning
STOCKHOLM: A court in Sweden on Friday sentenced a mother to six years in prison for allowing her son to fight for the militant group Islamic State (IS) as a child soldier in Syria.
The 49-year-old was convicted of serious war crimes, violating international law and for “not stopping his son, then aged 12 to 15, from being recruited and used as a child soldier for IS in the armed conflict in Syria.” This is stated by the Stockholm District Court in a statement.
The woman and her husband had been part of a “cult-like” Islamist milieu and in April 2013, she took her son to her father and an older son in Syria.
The court found that she must have understood that her son was used as a child soldier.
“She has not taken appropriate action to stop this, nor has she wanted to stop it, but his role as a child soldier would have been in line with her conviction,” the court said.
When she was prosecuted in January, the prosecutor’s office said that it was “the first time charges have been brought in Sweden for war crimes to use a child soldier”.
It also said that from August 2013 to May 2016, the boy is alleged to have participated “in hostilities carried out by armed groups, including the terrorist organization IS”.
The authority added that he died in 2017, without stating the cause of death.
About 300 Swedes or Swedish residents, a quarter of whom are women, joined IS in Syria and Iraq, most in 2013 and 2014, according to the Sapo intelligence service.
Sweden did not have existing legislation at the time to prosecute people for membership in a terrorist organization, so prosecutors instead sought other crimes to prosecute return for.
Published in Dawn, March 5, 2022