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Steven Emerson,
Executive Director
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December 12, 2014
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Returning
Swiss IS Jihadist Gets Community Service
by John Rossomando • Dec 11, 2014
at 5:15 pm
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Swiss authorities have decided to let returning an Islamic State
jihadist back into Switzerland with a slap on the wrist.
The threat posed by returning jihadists has deeply concerned Western
intelligence and law-enforcement agencies due to worries they may launch
terror attacks in their home countries.
Just last week, France's Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve warned that the threat of an attack by returning
jihadists was real and that Europeans needed to mobilize against it.
In France, "there are operations, arrests ...every day to avoid it
happening," he said.," Cazeneuve said after a meeting with of
European Union (EU) interior ministers in Brussels to discuss the jihadist
threat.
Nonetheless, Swiss Attorney General Michael Lauber ordered that a 30-year-old recent convert to Islam from
the western Swiss canton of Vaud work 600 hours of community service
instead of receiving jail time. Switzerland is not an EU member. The
jihadist must receive psychiatric care in addition to performing community
service.
The man, whose identity has not been released, left for Syria in December 2013 and stayed in a
training camp for two weeks before having second thoughts. The Islamic
State held him prisoner for 54 days before releasing him and allowing him
to return to Switzerland.
Switzerland's Federal Intelligence Service (FIS) says 55 of its citizens have left to fight for jihadist
groups since 2001. Of them, 31 left to fight in Iraq or Syria while 24
traveled to Pakistan, Yemen, Afghanistan or Somalia.
Switzerland is not alone Europe in taking a lenient approach to
returning jihadists. Danish authorities similarly have adopted an approach
emphasizing rehabilitation rather than punishment.
This policy continues despite the fact more Danish citizens have traveled to fight in Syria
per capita than anywhere else in Europe. Denmark's second largest city,
Aarhus, has welcomed returning jihadists back.
Rather than face arrest, returning Danish jihadists receive free
psychological counseling and help finding jobs or university admission.
Police in Aarhus have also set up routine meetings this year with a mosque
which had connections with approximately 30 jihadists who went to fight in
Syria.
"In 2013, we had 30 young people go to Syria," Jorgen Ilum,
Aarhus's police commissioner, told the Washington Post in October. "This
year, to my knowledge, we have had only one."
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