STOCKHOLM (AP) — A 49-year-old woman from Sweden was convicted Friday of serious violation of international law and a war crime for not preventing her 12-year-old son from being recruited as a child soldier on behalf of the Islamic State group in Syria.
The Stockholm District Court said Lina Ishaq who has been in custody in Sweden since September, and her husband belonged to a sect-like Islamist milieu that advocated armed struggle for Shariah law and emigration to live in a fundamentalist society.
The court said that in April 2013, the woman traveled to Syria with her son to join her husband and an older son. Her husband and both sons later died in Syria.
In its ruling, the court said Ishaq knew they were going to Syria and that the boy was recruited there as a child soldier on behalf of IS. “She didn’t take adequate measures to prevent this, nor has she wanted to prevent it, (because) his role as a child soldier has been in line with her convictions,” the court said.
The district court said that according to Swedish law Ishaq, who was the boy’s parent and guardian, had a special duty to protect him.
Throughout the trial, she denied wrongdoing, saying she was lured to Syria by her husband.
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