French woman sentenced for joining IS

A woman has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for associating with terrorists during two stays in Syria between 2013 and 2017.

Douha Mounib spoke in court about her radicalisation in 2012 and her desire to go to Syria that turned into an obsession.

While studying to be a midwife in 2012, she was watching propaganda videos. She quit her studies and started wearing a veil.

Mounib first went to Syria in 2013, travelling from Morocco to Turkey, where she married a smuggler and crossed the border.

She left Syria after two months, but wanted to return.

She crossed the Turkish border with Syria with her second husband in 2015 and they spent 15 months in Mossul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria - both of which were under IS control at the time.

She left in 2016 and was arrested in March 2017 at the Turkish border, her her daughter and her husband's son. She spent nine months in a Turkish detention centre an was sent back to France at the end of 2017.

Prosecutors asked for a 14-year sentence, but the court acknowledged the "evolution" of Mounib's attitude towards IS, which she said was in the past.

However, they also took into account her attempted escape from the Fresnes prison on November 2021.

Image by ErikaWittlieb from Pixabay