Trial of three French women accused of IS links: Verdict expected Friday

FRANCE 24 English

Visit our website: http://www.france24.com  Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English  Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/France24_en

Transcript

00:00Now there is a verdict in the case of three French women who joined the so-called Islamic

00:04State Caliphate in 2014. It's expected here in France today, moments from now. Well, the three

00:10women who brought their children to Syria as well were forced, were arrested and forcibly brought

00:15back to France in 2019, where they stand accused of being members of the terrorist group for three

00:20years. Two of them also accused of morally and materially abandoning their underage children.

00:25They all face anywhere between 10 and 15 years in prison. For more, we'll cross out of France 24's

00:31reporter, Claire Pacalant, standing by at the court, expected to deliver that verdict. Hi,

00:37Claire. So what's the latest then? As far as we understand, the judges are still considering

00:45the verdict, but we expect to hear from them later on this afternoon. We had the closing statements,

00:51what's known as the final words of the three defendants this morning, Christine Alain,

00:57Jennifer Klein and Maëline Duart. The two younger women, Jennifer Klein and Maëline Duart,

01:03have nine children between them. And during those closing statements, they asked for forgiveness

01:08from their children. They apologized. They said that they had failed as mothers. What's interesting

01:13is that in addition to the accusation that all three women conspired in a terrorist group,

01:19the two mothers, so Jennifer Klein and Maëline Duart, both are accused also of having neglected their

01:25responsibilities as parents by having taken, knowingly taken their children into a war zone and

01:31therefore compromised their safety, their health, their education, their security. And it's worth

01:38noting that also during this case, we did hear from some of the social workers who are now working with

01:43their children, because in 2019, when these three women came back to France and the nine children

01:49came back to, the women were placed in detention initially, and those children were placed in care,

01:54and they are now with foster families. But what they lived through in Syria was traumatizing,

02:01according to the social workers who were spoken in court. It was a very difficult situation,

02:05and now they are trying to rebuild their lives within these foster families, but it's a difficult task ahead.

02:12We are expecting, though, that verdict to come down slightly later today, and it's also worth noting

02:16that while two of the women, Christine Alain and Jennifer Klein, are currently still in detention,

02:21one of the women, Maëline Duart, has been allowed out. She's, of course, under police surveillance.

02:26She checks in regularly with the police, but she's able to see her children one weekend,

02:32one out of two, so every other week. And Jennifer Klein sees her children one-to-one for about an hour at a time

02:40when she's in detention. So, Claire, can you tell us more about the Klein family,

02:45which all of these three women have various ties to?

02:53It's very well known now in France, this French Catholic family, the Klein family,

02:58converted to a radical form of Islam. And these three women, so Jennifer Klein was born into that family,

03:04Christine Alain and Maëline Duart married into it. And at one point, there were four generations of this family

03:11all living in Raqqa. So the Islamic State group's de facto capital, in its de facto, in its self-proclaimed caliphate,

03:19all living in Raqqa at the same time. So the questions that have been asked during this trial have been,

03:25how much did these women know before they headed to Syria with their husbands?

03:29How much did they know about what the Islamic State was doing, what their role was on the ground,

03:34and to what extent they could pose a threat to French society today?

03:37Claire Pacallan, thank you very much.

03:40We will, of course, be bringing you that verdict as soon as it comes in here on France 24.

03:44Thank you very much.

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended