Handing over of six-year-old boy to Islamic State training camp in Syria as war crime of enlisting children
Published: 19 May 2021 Authors: Stefan Talmon and Philippe Allen
On 29 April 2020, the Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf sentenced German national Carla-Josephine S. to five years and three months in prison for, inter alia, the war crime of enlisting a child under the age of 15 years in an armed group participating in a non-international armed conflict. The 33-year-old mother had left Germany in October 2015 and travelled with her three minor children against the will of the father to Syria. There, she joined the “Islamic State” (“IS”) terrorist organisation and married an IS fighter from Somalia who was subsequently killed. In May 2016, Carla-Josephine S. consented to the military training of her six-year-old son, Hamza, in an “Ashbal al-Khalifah” (Lion cubs of the Caliphate) training camp even though she was concerned that upon completion of the training at the age of nine he could be available to the IS as a fighter. Ashbal training camps were set up in every town and village under IS control. Children stayed there for six months completely isolated from the outside world and were groomed to become IS soldiers, not to join the fighting immediately, but to become the next generation of jihadist fighters. After three days in the training camp, Hamza was brought back to his mother because he was still too young. In the summer of 2016, at the age of seven, the boy was once again taken to a training camp, where he received physical training, was instructed in the use of weapons, and introduced to sentry duties. During this time, Hamza shot with a gun. After a few weeks, he again returned to the defendant. In the summer of 2017, Hamza was sent to a training camp for the third time, from which he returned after two to three weeks. Hamza was killed in December 2018 at the age of eight in a missile strike. (more…)