In the Ayn Issa refugee camp, in Syria, November 2016. DELIL SOULEIMAN/AFP
Emilie K. has already been tried by the French courts for her stay in Syria within the ranks of the Islamic State group (IS). On June 25, 2020, the Paris criminal court sentenced her in absentia to 20 years in prison for participation in a terrorist criminal association. During this trial, six members of the same jihadist network from Savoie, all from Albertville like her, were also sentenced in absentia to prison terms ranging from 20 years to life.
Now 34, Emilie K. is to be retried in Paris, starting Monday, May 4, this time alone and in person, for the same acts, namely her stay in Syria between 2014 and 2016. According to the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor's Office, she is the first French woman repatriated from a jihadist zone to be retried after being sentenced in absentia. Further trials are scheduled for the fall for other "returnees" from Syria whose sentences in absentia have been overturned.
Emilie K.'s trajectory is entirely linked to one man, Mohamed Tahar Tamine. She went to Syria for him, and it was after his death that she decided to leave. Raised by a single mother in Savoie, she barely knew her father, who was unstable and an alcoholic. With no religious upbringing, she began fasting during Ramadan at around 12 years old to imitate her friends, because it was a kind of "trend," she told investigators.
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