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ISIS

Second French suspect in Isis beheading video

France confirmed on Wednesday that a second Frenchman had been identified in the shocking Isis video showing the beheading of Syrian prisoners. A source claimed the man was a 22-year-old from an eastern suburb of Paris.

Second French suspect in Isis beheading video
Frenchman Maxime Hauchard, one of two French nationals identified in a brutal Isis video. Photo: AFP

A second Frenchman who appeared among Islamic State jihadists in a grisly execution video has been identified as a 22-year-old man from an eastern suburb of Paris, a source close to the case said Wednesday.

President Francois Hollande earlier confirmed a second Frenchman was spotted in the video showing the beheading of Syrian prisoners, who the source said went by the name Abu Othman.

The two Frenchmen are seen in the brutal clip released by the IS group on Sunday which features the killing of 18 Syrian prisoners and a US aid worker.

"All we can say for now is that there were two French people," he told a press conference in Canberra alongside Australian leader Tony Abbott.

"One has been categorically identified and the other one is in the process of being identified."

French prosecutors have confirmed the first was 22-year-old Maxime Hauchard from Normandy in northern France but the identity of what they said was a possible second Frenchman was not given.

Hollande said it was not clear exactly what role the men played in the beheadings and that "the judicial system will have to establish this".

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said in Paris that Hauchard left for Syria "in August 2013 after a stay in Mauritania in 2012" after reportedly becoming radicalised online.

Around 1,000 French nationals are thought to have taken part in the conflict in Syria and Iraq, with around 375 currently there, the government has said. At least 36 have died there.

Hollande said the issue of foreign fighters and how they were being "brainwashed" was a major concern.

"They could be from any background, from any ethnic origin, but they easily can be brainwashed into becoming converts, and this is a very important matter," he said.

"We must be vigilant, and we must be strong.

"We must be firm in terms of the networks and in terms of these foreign fighters themselves who will have to face the consequences of their actions before the judicial system when at one point or another they are able to be apprehended, whether in France or abroad."

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ISIS

Ex-jihadi housewife jailed in Norway for joining IS

A Norwegian court on Tuesday sentenced a woman who lived as a housewife in Syria to prison for being a member of the Islamic State group (IS), despite not actively fighting herself.

Ex-jihadi housewife jailed in Norway for joining IS
The Kurdish-run al-Hol camp which holds suspected relatives of Islamic State fighters.Photo: Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP

The Oslo court sentenced the Norwegian-Pakistani woman to three and a half years in prison for “participating in a terrorist organisation” by taking care of her household and enabling her three husbands to fight.

“By travelling to an area controlled by IS in Syria… by moving in and living with her husbands, taking care of the children and various tasks at home, the defendant enabled her three husbands to actively participate in IS fighting,” judge Ingmar Nilsen said as he read out the verdict.

Being a housewife to three successive husbands did not render her a passive bystander, the judge said.

“On the contrary, she was a supporter who enabled the jihad, looked after her three husbands at home and raised the new generation of IS recruits,” he said.

The young woman, who admitted having “radical ideas” at the time, left for Syria in early 2013 to join an Islamist fighter, Bastian Vasquez, who was fighting the regime.

Although she did not take up arms herself, she was accused of having allowed her husbands to go fight while taking care of her two children and household chores.

The trial was the first prosecution in Norway of someone who had returned after joining IS.

“This is a special case,” prosecutor Geir Evanger acknowledged during the trial.

“This is the first time that, to put it bluntly, someone has been charged for being a wife and mother.”

The prosecution had called for a four-year sentence, while the defence had called for her acquittal and immediately appealed Tuesday’s verdict.

The woman’s lawyer, Nils Christian Nordhus, argued that his client had quickly wanted to leave Syria after being subjected to domestic violence.

She had also been a victim of human trafficking because she had been held against her will, he added.

But the judge stressed that she had participated in the organisation “knowingly” and of her own will.

The woman was repatriated to Norway in early 2020 on humanitarian grounds with her two children, including a young boy described as seriously ill.

At least four other Norwegian women and their children are being held in Kurdish-controlled camps in Syria.

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