Indictment in France of a third “ghost” from Syria for genocide against the Yazidi minority

Lolita C., a French woman who returned from Syria in August 2021 and already prosecuted for terrorist offenses, is now also indicted for genocide against the Yazidi minority. She is the third “ghost” in France to be prosecuted for these charges.

Following an interrogation on Tuesday, Lolita C. was indicted for genocide “against Yazidi victims” and complicity in genocide, as well as for crimes against humanity “against civilian victims, particularly Yazidi victims” and complicity, the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (PNAT) announced on Friday June 14, requested by Agence France-Presse (AFP).

According to two sources close to the case, this mother, now 35 years old, is notably suspected of having reduced a Yazidi child into slavery in 2017. She was then living in Syria with her husband Lakhdar Sebouai, a member of the network. from Strasbourg who joined the ranks of the Islamic State (IS) group, and her four children, two of whom were born in France from a first union. Lolita C. “strongly contests” the accusations against her, according to these sources close to the matter. On Tuesday, the defense pleaded ” the constraint “said one of them.

She claims to have treated the child “like [sa] own daughter »

During previous interrogations of which the AFP was aware, she had explained that a ” little girl “ eight-year-old had been brought to her home by one of her husband’s bosses, a member of ISIS, and that she had treated her ” as [sa] own daughter ». For a month, “during her stay with me, I never used her, I never treated her like a slave but like a child”she assured the judges in March 2022.

French justice seeks to “document crimes” of the Islamic State organization against minorities and opened at the end of 2016 a preliminary investigation known as “structural”explained the PNAT to AFP at the end of April.

According to the PNAT, Lolita C. is the “third wife”, among the “ghosts” prosecuted in France, to also be indicted for these counts falling under the Crimes against humanity unit of the Paris judicial court and liable to criminal proceedings. Thus, before Lolita C., a first indictment was issued in 2022, specifies a source close to the case.

The PNAT also requested at the beginning of May a trial for a second woman, Sonia M. In her case, the alleged victim, a Yazidi aged 16 at the time of the events, was found by investigators and denounced a daily newspaper of abuse. On the other hand, in Lolita C.’s case, the little girl has not yet been found, according to two sources close to the case.

Possible recruitment of his son

To the judges, Lolita C. explained her desire to leave for the fantasy lands of the IS through her isolation: a young mother, she felt “very alone”undermined by “disappointments in love”and wanted “turn to God and prayer”. “I knew where I was going, although there were some things I didn’t expect at all: the executions, the martyrdom operations”she told the investigating magistrates in September 2022.

They suspect her of having co-directed a “women’s house” or even to have learned the handling of weapons, such as the Kalashnikov, which she tempers saying she has “tried once to shoot”. She also stated that “never worn” explosive belt, not even the one that was ” has [son] residence “.

Over the past three years, the judges have also questioned her several times about the possible recruitment of her eldest son when he was 5 years old into the “Lion Cubs of the Caliphate”. She categorically denied it, saying she had registered him for “a normal school” where he “learned Arabic, mathematics, the Koran” and in no way “weapons training”.

After being detained in a Kurdish camp, then expelled from Turkey to France, the mother was indicted in Paris in August 2021 for criminal terrorist association and for “removal of a parent from their legal obligations” notably. She has been in pre-trial detention since then.