Woman on trial for Islamic State involvement

Radia Tahar Aouidate appeared before Paris's special terrorism court on Wednesday, charged with participating in a terrorist criminal conspiracy with Islamic State between two thousand fourteen and two thousand twenty.

She is a revenante

Tahar Aouidate is a revenante, the word used for a woman who travelled to Syria or Iraq to join terrorist organisations including Islamic State before returning to France.

Women made up a third of French recruits

Women accounted for nearly a third of the approximately one thousand five hundred French nationals who travelled to Syria and Iraq, and proportionally more of them have returned to France.

One hundred seventy-six women have returned

According to the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor's Office, one hundred seventy-six of the three hundred ninety-five adults who came back to France were women. Of those, fifty-six have been convicted.

Women dominate this year's docket

Of the twenty-three terrorism cases scheduled to be heard by the special court this year, eighteen involve female returnees. Courts are increasingly focusing on women who joined Islamic State.

Her brother led the family to Syria

Tahar Aouidate described her family as a cult with her brother Fodil as its guru. In late two thousand thirteen, Fodil pressured family members to travel to Syria and join Islamic State.

“a cult”

Twenty-three family members departed

Between May and September two thousand fourteen, twenty-three family members from Roubaix in northern France travelled to Syria, including Tahar Aouidate's parents, six sisters, their husbands and children.

Her brother now serves life in Iraq

Fodil departed in June two thousand fourteen. In two thousand nineteen, he was among eleven French nationals sentenced to death in Iraq for belonging to Islamic State. His sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment.

She gave birth in Syria

Tahar Aouidate was married off by her brother to a Tunisian Islamic State fighter. Like eighty-six percent of the twenty-two female returnees whose cases were heard by special courts in two thousand twenty-six, she gave…

Her children are in French state care

Tahar Aouidate's two children, now aged nine and eleven, are currently under the care of the French state. She faces a sentence of up to thirty years in prison.