ISIS Midwife Sentenced to 12 Years for Terrorism in France

Douha Mounib was facing a 14-year prison sentence requested by the PNAT, but she had expressed remorse for her terrorist activities, including her attempted escape in November 2021, during her trial. Despite her guilty plea for criminal terrorist criminal conspiracy (AMT) related to her two trips to Syria and Iraq and her multiple attempts to reach the war zone, the 32-year-old Moroccan woman received the verdict with serenity, according to L’Union.

She was not surprised. "I was expecting a sentence of more than ten years anyway," she said when the court president, Laurent Raviot, asked her if she understood the decision. The criminal sentence is accompanied by a two-thirds security period. For Joseph Hazan, her lawyer, it is a chance given the circumstances and the charges. "It is a satisfactory decision, the court decided to take a step towards the accused," he specified.

Douha Mounib’s career path is atypical. The 32-year-old midwife radicalized in 2012 and joined the territories controlled by the terrorist group in 2013, abandoning her studies. She told the court that going to Syria to join the IS was for her a kind of "emancipation". Her stay ended with her arrest in March 2017 by the Turkish authorities and her extradition to France a few months later.

The special assize court must try on Thursday and Friday, Douha Mounib’s co-detainee. Also 32 years old, Amandine Le Coz, had joined the IS and stayed in the Iraqi-Syrian zone between 2014 and 2019.