Belgian ISIS Executioner Seeks Repatriation for Trial in Brussels Attacks Case

Anouar Haddouchi, or the Belgian executioner of Raqqa, who went to Syria with his family in 2014 to join the Islamic State (IS), has been detained in northern Syria for more than six months, after being arrested following the fall of the State in the region.

Interviewed by the Kurdish newspaper ANF news, Haddouchi, 35, expressed his wish to return for his trial and possible conviction. While acknowledging that he had no power over where he would be tried, he stated: "I am a Belgian citizen and I would like to return there with my family. If I am found guilty, then it should be in Belgium."

Although he has denied it on several occasions, sources reveal that Haddouchi would have carried out hundreds of public beheadings in the city of Raqqa, one of the last strongholds of the IS, which earned him the nickname of "the executioner of Raqqa".

The federal prosecutors, for their part, have investigated Haddouchi’s alleged involvement in the terrorist attack that bloodied Paris in 2015 and Brussels in 2016.

This investigation revealed that the defendant would have transferred thousands of euros to Mohamed Abrini, the main suspect in the two terrorist attacks.

Haddouchi’s calls to be prosecuted for his crimes in his country of origin echo those of the United States and the Kurdish militias he supported throughout the war against the Islamic State in Syria.

As for the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it has repeatedly turned a deaf ear to the executioner’s calls, indicating that these foreign jihadist fighters should be tried on the spot or by an international tribunal.