Sweden pushes proposal for trying ISIS members in Kurdish camps forward

Nahla Abdelmonem

The female members of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), now in detention camps in northern Syria, are a cause for concern among European countries.

Sweden keeps, meanwhile, pushing its proposal for holding international trials for ISIS members forward.

A Swedish Foreign Ministry delegation discussed this proposal with the Kurdish administration which runs the detention camps in northern Syria recently, according to the Abu Dhabi-based English language daily, The National.

It added that the delegation members told the Kurdish administration that Sweden wanted to try its detained nationals in the camps, instead of trying them in Sweden.

The members of the delegation met female Swedes in the camp along with their children, The National said.

Alteration

The Swedish proposal and the initial approval of the Kurdish administration of it represent a change of attitude on the part of the administration which always rejected the trial of ISIS members in the camps.

U.S. President Donald Trump called earlier on European states to allow their nationals who had joined ISIS to return home and then try them.

The National quoted Hans-Jakob Schindler, the coordinator of the ISIS, al-Qaida and Taliban Monitoring Team at the United Nations Security Council, as describing approval by the Kurdish administration to try ISIS members in the detention camps as a major alteration.

He added that this approval would also open the door for a solution to the problem of the European ISIS members in Kurdish detention camps.

Schindler said the trial of ISIS members in European countries would have left out a large number of the charges these members should face.

The trials of these members in their countries, he said, would have been limited to their travel to join a militant group abroad.

It would have been very difficult for European states to prove the crimes these members had committed in the countries where they travelled, Schindler said.