ISIS Supporter Sentenced for Prison Break Attempt in France

Sentenced on March 1 to 12 years of criminal confinement by the Special Assize Court for having stayed in Syria and Iraq, Douha Mounib has just received an additional three and a half years for having tried to escape in the summer of 2021 from the Fresnes remand prison (Val-de-Marne) where she had been staying for about four years. The 32-year-old woman managed to dig a hole under the bars of her cell, a task she devoted "between 6 and 8 hours a day" to, reports Le Parisien. In the night of November 13 to 14, 2021, the jihadist with a slender and athletic build set out to wriggle through this 21 cm hole using a makeshift rope made from sheets and clothes.

"It wasn’t easy to decide, I had an adrenaline rush," confesses Douha, who was able to reach the second floor and cross a wire fence before finding herself in a dead-end situation. Trapped, she resolved to read the Quran until the next morning when the prison officers arrested her. During the trial that took place on Tuesday in Paris, the prosecution wondered how this "perfectly methodical project", orchestrated by the jihadist, failed. The prosecution requested 4 years in prison against her, but the court decided to sentence her to three and a half years in prison.

The escape had become the "last resort" for Douha, who should be transferred to the radicalization management unit in Rennes (Ille-et-Vilaine), which would distance her from her 5-year-old daughter placed in a foster family. "It is the sadness that has generated this illegal act [...] There is a suicidal dimension in this approach, at least judicially," explains her lawyer, Me Joseph Hazan, who considers this attempt as "a failure" of the judicial institution and the prison administration. For the prosecution, Douha’s act is anything but "desperate", arguing that the defendant wanted to "escape a long and inevitable imprisonment and do so definitively".

"I would have taken refuge in the first possible place. I would have taken what was in my path," confesses Douha, whose only wish was to "get back [her] children" (her daughter and the son of her ex-partner). And to add: "There has been a lot of change since this attempted escape. I regret it, it was completely stupid, it will give me an additional sentence. But it was the trigger for a new life and allowed me to ask myself questions about a lot of things. It was the final point of a book that allowed me to move on to another chapter." Douha can appeal her conviction within ten days.