A French court on Friday, September 26, handed jail sentences of up to 13 years to three women for joining the Islamic State group (IS) in Syria, including the niece of notorious jihadist propagandist brothers.
Jennyfer Clain, 34, whose uncles Jean-Michel and Fabien Clain had publicly claimed responsibility on behalf of IS for the Paris attacks on November 13, 2015, was sentenced to 11 years for belonging to IS. Her sister-in-law, Mayalen Duhart, 42, was given 10 years, and 67-year-old Christine Allain, the women's mother-in-law, 13 years. Earlier in court, Jennyfer Clain had apologized to all "direct and indirect victims" of the jihadists, "in France, Syria, Iraq and elsewhere."
IS seized swathes of Syria and neighboring Iraq during the Syrian civil war, which began in 2011 and left hundreds of thousands dead, and loudly took responsibility for atrocities around the world. During the worst attack on Paris since World War II, jihadist gunmen and suicide bombers killed 130 people at the Bataclan concert hall and elsewhere.
The Clain brothers are presumed to have died during the military campaign by US-backed Kurdish groups that eventually defeated IS in 2019. Three years later, the siblings were sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment without parole.
"I am not asking them to forgive me, it is unforgivable, but I offer them my deepest and most sincere apologies," Jennyfer Clain said, referring to the victims. She went to the Middle East with four children, and her fifth baby was born in Raqqa, the city IS militants claimed as their capital.
Duhart brought her four children with her and had a baby there, who died at seven months. Weeping in court, Jennyfer Clain asked her five children, who have been placed in foster care since their return to France in 2019, for forgiveness. "I am sorry for everything they have been through because of me," said Clain, who is also on trial for abandoning minors. "I have failed in my role as a mother."
"I am not a victim," Duhart said. "The victims are the others, those who were tortured and massacred by the organization I belonged to. I am responsible."
Earlier this week the presiding judge had pointed out to the three women that they had not said anything about the victims of the attacks. Allain said that she had been touched by her meeting in prison with Georges Salines, the father of Lola Salines, one of the victims killed at the Bataclan.
Jennyfer Clain's lawyer, Guillaume Halbique, welcomed the "balanced" verdict for his client, adding she was unlikely to appeal. "Her ideological commitment [to IS] is completely behind her and has been for many years," he added.