Syrian Kurdish Authorities Hand over British Woman, 3 Children Linked to ISIS to UK Delegation

A British woman and three children linked to the extremist ISIS group in Syria were handed over to a UK delegation that visited the region this week, Syrian Kurdish-led authorities said Friday. (AFP)
A British woman and three children linked to the extremist ISIS group in Syria were handed over to a UK delegation that visited the region this week, Syrian Kurdish-led authorities said Friday. (AFP)
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Syrian Kurdish Authorities Hand over British Woman, 3 Children Linked to ISIS to UK Delegation

A British woman and three children linked to the extremist ISIS group in Syria were handed over to a UK delegation that visited the region this week, Syrian Kurdish-led authorities said Friday. (AFP)
A British woman and three children linked to the extremist ISIS group in Syria were handed over to a UK delegation that visited the region this week, Syrian Kurdish-led authorities said Friday. (AFP)

A British woman and three children linked to the extremist ISIS group in Syria were handed over to a UK delegation that visited the region this week, Syrian Kurdish-led authorities said Friday.

The handover, which took place on Wednesday, is the latest in a push to repatriate people from al-Hol and Roj camps in northeastern Syria that house tens of thousands, mostly wives and children of ISIS militants but also supporters of the extremist group.

The Kurdish authorities did not release the names of the four, saying only they were held at Roj camp before the handover.

According to a statement, a delegation led by Britain’s Special Representative for Syria Ann Snow visited northeastern Syria, where they discussed with the Kurdish authorities the ongoing threat that ISIS still poses, five years after the extremists lost the last sliver of land they once controlled in large parts of Iraq and Syria.

Elham Ahmad, the co-chair for foreign relations in the regional Syrian Kurdish administration, said “radical solutions should be found for the problem of terrorism.”

Thousands of ISIS members and suspects held in jails in northeast Syria should face justice, she added.

In 2014, ISIS declared a so-called state in large parts of Iraq and Syria and attracted tens of thousands of supporters from around the world. The extremists were defeated by a US-led coalition in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria in 2019.

Tens of thousands of people linked to the group were taken to al-Hol camp, close to the Iraqi border.

Over the past five years about 30,000 people, mostly Iraqis and Syrians, have left al-Hol camp and been repatriated. More than 2,000 are also held in Roj camp.

Earlier this month, the United States said it repatriated 11 of its citizens from al-Hol and Roj camps, the largest group to date that Washington has taken out of the two sprawling camps.

Earlier in May, more than 200 Syrians were taken from al-Hol to their hometowns in Syria’s eastern province that borders Iraq.



Assange Heads to Australia after US Guilty Plea

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange leaves the US Federal Courthouse in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands, on June 26, 2024. (Photo by Yuichi YAMAZAKI / AFP)
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange leaves the US Federal Courthouse in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands, on June 26, 2024. (Photo by Yuichi YAMAZAKI / AFP)
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Assange Heads to Australia after US Guilty Plea

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange leaves the US Federal Courthouse in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands, on June 26, 2024. (Photo by Yuichi YAMAZAKI / AFP)
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange leaves the US Federal Courthouse in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands, on June 26, 2024. (Photo by Yuichi YAMAZAKI / AFP)

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange walked free on Wednesday from a court on the US Pacific island territory of Saipan after pleading guilty to violating US espionage law in a deal that allowed him to head straight home to Australia.
His release ends a 14-year legal saga in which Assange spent more than five years in a British high-security jail and seven years in asylum at the Ecuadorean embassy in London battling extradition to the US, where he faced 18 criminal charges, Reuters reported.
During the three-hour hearing, Assange pleaded guilty to one criminal count of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified national defense documents but said he had believed the US Constitution's First Amendment, which protects free speech, shielded his activities.
"Working as a journalist I encouraged my source to provide information that was said to be classified in order to publish that information," he told the court.
"I believed the First Amendment protected that activity but I accept that it was ... a violation of the espionage statute."
Chief US District Judge Ramona V. Manglona accepted his guilty plea and released him due to time already served in a British jail.
"We firmly believe that Mr. Assange never should have been charged under the Espionage Act and engaged in (an) exercise that journalists engage in every day," his US lawyer, Barry Pollack, told reporters outside the court.
WikiLeaks' work would continue, he said.
His UK and Australian lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, thanked the Australian government for its years of diplomacy in securing Assange's release.
"It is a huge relief to Julian Assange, to his family, to his friends, to his supporters and to us and to everyone who believes in free speech around the world that he can now return home to Australia and be reunited with his family," she said.
Assange, 52, left the court through a throng of TV cameras and photographers without answering questions, then waved as he got into a white SUV.
He left Saipan on a private jet to the Australian capital Canberra.

Assange had agreed to plead guilty to a single criminal count, according to filings in the US District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands.

The US territory in the western Pacific was chosen due to his opposition to travelling to the mainland US and for its proximity to Australia, prosecutors said.