Sweden convicts woman of war crimes for photos of decapitated Islamic State victims

By AP 29 March 2023, 3:10 pm

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Illustrative: In this July 17, 2017, file photo, a fighter of the Christian Syriac militia that battles the Islamic State group under the banner of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, burns an IS flag on the front line on the western side of Raqqa, northeast Syria. (Hussein Malla/AP)

A Swedish court finds a 35-year-old woman guilty of war crimes for posting photos of herself with severed heads that were on display in a Syrian city in 2014.

Fatosh Ibrahim, who pleaded not guilty, is sentenced to three months in prison.

The Goteborg District Court says Fatosh Ibrahim “on two occasions published photographs of severed heads impaled on the fence” of a Raqqa roundabout, placed there by Islamic State group militants.

Ibrahim used her cellphone to take photos of herself in Raqqa’s Naim Square – meaning “Paradise” – where Islamic State group militants had displayed hanged bodies or heads.

The court says in its ruling that Ibrahim posted on Facebook “disparaging comments about the people in the photos and expressed that they deserved what they were subjected to.”

“The woman had clearly expressed her sympathy with the actions of the Islamic State group, and her actions have been considered to be in connection with the armed conflict that was going on in the area at the time.”