A prominent anti-terror judge in Paris has called on the French government to repatriate French jihadists detained in Syrian prisons, warning of a significant ‘risk to the public safety’ if they fail to do so.
Judge David De Pas, head of the anti-terror unit of the Paris court, while speaking about ‘French’ jihadists during an unprecedented speech, said: “We need a political will of repatriation,” FranceInfo reports.
The judge’s words follow Turkey’s military incursion into northeastern Syria which has led to the escape of jihadists and Islamic State fighters who were previously held in prisons in the autonomous region of Rojava.
According to Kurdish authorities, close to 800 women and children of foreign jihadists have escaped from the IDP camp in Ain Issa. Kurdish forces have also reported that five ISIS jihadists escaped from a prison near the northeastern city of Oamichli.
“The geopolitical instability of the region and the porosity of what is left of the Kurdish camps leaves two things to be dreaded.” De Pas said.
“On the one hand, uncontrolled migrations jihadists to Europe with the risk of attack by highly ideologized people and on the other hand the reconstitution of terrorist groups particularly hardened and determined combatants in the region,” the judge added.
France currently has about 200 adult citizens detained in Kurdish-controlled prison camps. So far, the government has refused to return them to France where they would then be tried for their crimes.
For Judge David De Pas, the best option would be to repatriate them to France directly. “I hear that we can have arrests, but how can we protect ourselves if we do not have them here? The best method is to judge and control them,” he said.
In the case that they’re tried by Iraqi or Kurdish authorities, “we will not be able to monitor them” when they’re released from detention, De Pas added.
US President Donald Trump has criticized European leaders for their reluctance to repatriate their citizens who’ve join terrorist organizations in the Middle East, and who’ve subsequently been detained by US-backed Kurdish and Arab fighters.
“We have thousands of jihadists to send back to Europe. If the countries of Europe do not repatriate them, we will probably have to release them,” Trump told US media in August.
More than 10,000 jihadists are currently in the custody of Syrian Democratic Forces, 2,000 of which are made up of foreigners from 50 different countries, including France.
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