On Thursday, a court in Rotterdam sentenced four Dutch women who joined the Islamic State terrorist organization in 2013 and participated in the preparation of terrorist acts in Syria and Iraq, MTI reports based on the NlTimes.
According to the Dutch news portal, the sentences handed down to the women range from two and a half to three years, although the execution of the sentence was suspended for a probationary period of 12 to 15 months. A fifth defendant was acquitted by the court. In February last year, the Netherlands resettled the women and their 11 children from the Roj refugee camp in northern Syria, with the aim of bringing them to court for their ties to the Islamic State. The prosecution asked for a four-year prison sentence for the accused, but the judges opted for a lighter sentence, citing that the women had already distanced themselves from the ideology of the Islamic State. In addition, the women and their children lived in deplorable conditions in the refugee camp, which was also taken into account when sentencing them.
One of the defendants was found not guilty of participating in a terrorist organization by the court, but he was also sentenced to prison because he took his teenage son with him to the area where he lost his life in the fighting. Since 2013, around 300 Dutch citizens have joined the Islamic State, and almost a hundred of them have lost their lives in the fighting. About 90 adults and 80 children returned to the Netherlands, the rest stayed in Syria or migrated to Turkey.