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Frenchwoman repatriated from Syria sentenced to 10 years for terrorist conspiracy

France

A French court on Thursday sentenced a woman repatriated from Syrian camps holding Islamic State group members to 10 years in prison for terrorist conspiracy. Carole Sun, 30, left France for Syria in 2014 and was arrested by Kurdish forces in 2017 as the Islamic State group collapsed.

Women stand at the Kurdish-run al-Hol camp, which holds relatives of suspected Islamic State (IS) group fighters in the northeastern Hasakeh governorate, on April 18, 2025.
Women stand at the Kurdish-run al-Hol camp, which holds relatives of suspected Islamic State group fighters in the northeastern Hasakeh governorate, on April 18, 2025. © Delil Souleiman, AFP

The second Frenchwoman to be repatriated from Syrian camps holding Islamic State group (also known as ISIS or ISIL) members and displaced people was on Thursday sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Carole Sun, 30, was found guilty of participating in a terrorist criminal conspiracy by a special criminal court in Paris.

She left France for Syria in July 2014 with her brother and was arrested by Kurdish forces in December 2017, when the Islamic State group self-styled caliphate was collapsing.

She and other women were then held in detention camps in Idlib. Sun returned to France on July 5, 2022, as part of the first repatriation of French nationals.

She told the court she had been radicalised online.

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The judge said the defendant knew or lived with "extremely high-profile individuals" who were known for "cruel" acts or for fighting in units with links to the November 2015 Paris attacks.

Sun's second marriage was to a member of the Islamic State group intelligence service, whom she once wrote to her mother, "kills traitors". He is currently imprisoned in Iraq, as is her brother.

The defendant told the judge that Islamic State group ideology "kept me from seeing how serious" the events transpiring around her were.

She acknowledged that she "contributed" to the group's "propaganda".

She also described "frightening" people around her in the camp, where she spent more than four years raising her children.

"It's like a jungle," Sun said. "There is a moral war going on there, even among the children."

Around 60 women are yet to be tried for similar charges.

More than one-third of the French women who went to the Syrian region have returned, according to the public prosecutor, and since 2017, 30 have been tried by the special court, while others have been tried in criminal court.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)