La amenaza proveniente de los combatientes yihadistas retornados a España. ¿Motivo de preocupación?

Abstract

The fall of the caliphate proclaimed in June 2014 by Abu Bakr al Baghdadi from the Great Mosque of Mosul has brought with it the return to Europe of thousands of foreign terrorist fighters, many of them accompanied by women and children. And, in this sense, Spain has not been an exception. There is no doubt that, within the subjects who have returned to Spain and to other countries in Europe and the West, there is a significant number of them who do so considering their experience in the caliphate in terms of trauma and nightmare. However, there are also those who return for convenience, trying to hide from the police forces of their country horrendous crimes committed during their stay in conflict zones. With regard to Spain, the returned foreign fighters have so far only been sentenced for crimes of integration into a terrorist organization, or transfer to a foreign country for terrorist purposes. Contrary to other countries, in the case of Spain there has not yet been any conviction of a subject returned for serious crimes (murder, torture, injury, etc.) committed in Syrian or Iraqi territory. Therefore, the aim of this article is to expose how other countries of the European cultural environment have been able to collect the relevant evidence to prosecute and sentence their subjects displaced to conflict zones for committing serious crimes.