the HASAKAH PROVINCE (Nordøstsyrien): In the nine months has an ethnic Danish man imprisoned with the kurdish security forces in northeastern Syria accused of – as one of the over 150 danes, who in recent years have emigrated from Denmark to join the Islamic State.
Here he is sitting in prison among the thousands of prisoners from all over the world, after he in the end of February was arrested in Deir ez-Zor desert. According to the dane delivered he themselves from Islamic State’s last stronghold in the Baghouz as to the last measly square kilometers of the caliphate was destroyed and a few weeks later, in march of this year was declared eliminated.
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In this Special series, we focus on the Danish ‘Kristian’ who left Aarhus and Denmark to settle in the Islamic State. Today, he is imprisoned as ICE-warrior in Syria, and as the first media in Denmark, we have found and spoken with him.
Poul Madsen, executive editor-in-chief
Completely exclusive has Ekstra Bladet the only Danish media met the 28-year-old dane in prison. Here we took a high, rødblond and starry-eyed man in an orange fangedragt that with jysk accent tells that he in september 2013 left his life as a craftsman in Aarhus, to sit on a plane to Turkey. From there he was smuggled into Syria.
Close to the Danish Kristian from prison: My life in the caliphate
We found ‘Kristian’ in a prison in northern Syria. Here he sits as a prisoner of war. There must be a special attention to prisoners of war, and therefore we have chosen to blur his image and give him an alias. Photo: Thea Pedersen
In the caliphate lived the 28-year-old for several key ICE-cities known for also being the home of the other Danish fremmedkrigere as Manbij, the de facto capital, Raqqa, and the last stronghold, Baghouz. Here used the dane, according to Ekstra sources of several different arab names, but behind them hides a quite common English name when he is born and raised in a pæredansk family in Aarhus.
In the caliphate, he founded not only his own business, but also his own family, when he was married with a young syrian girl, who he now has a son, but was divorced from at the arrest.
’Kristian’ write themselves into the Danish ICE-history as a part of the first wave of Danish fremmedkrigere, who left Denmark. But unusually also as one who, albeit reluctantly left the caliphate was among the very last.
He is thus the first and possibly the only ethnic Danish accused the ICE warrior, who has survived the time in the caliphate.
the Extra Leaf has in over a year and a half been familiar with the Danish Kristian and looked for him in Syria.
Several Danish fremmedkrigere have been killed in Syria and Iraq. But when fighting against kalifatets last stronghold in Baghouz raged in February and march, fell Ekstra Bladet, however, over a photo that shows the young dane in the desert, after he was taken prisoner. It confirmed that he was not dead in the Islamic State.
In Syria, we waited a week to get access to the 28-year-old dane justified by arguments that the authorities did not know where he was, because thousands of prisoners are moved around after Turkey’s invasion, that it was due to the investigative steps that forhalede the situation.
We was initially also referred to one prison, but when we showed up, was as yet not a part of the prison population.
The real meeting took place in a prison in the Hassakah province and, specifically, in a bare room in the prison hospital section, where we among other things were offered masks to the mouth due. the smell and probably the risk of diseases.
Before the interview, which ran in an hour and a half we got of the prison authorities more instructions: We may not disclose the prison’s location. We had not to shoot the guards. Of the fear of revolt in the prison, we had to also can not tell the prisoners that the former self-proclaimed caliph Abu-Bakr al-Baghdadi has been killed or mention that Turkey has launched an offensive in the northern Østsyrien.
During the interview, asked Kristian Extra Leaf to transfer a message to his family and not least the Danish state – the latter on to get help to get out of prison.
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to Ekstra Bladet claims the dane, in line with other ICE-accused imprisoned women and men, that he never went to Syria to fight, however, in order to help ’sisters and brothers’ in the war against Bashar al-Assad’s regime. He refuses also to have participated in the armed struggle for ICE. Nevertheless he became shortly after his arrival seriously wounded.
– I was hit in an air raid and could not fight. How can I fight, when I can hardly go up stairs? he claims through the one and a half hour long interview in the prison, where he is sitting with rigid legs and shows several scars on his legs, one of which was to be amputated.
In the interview, do the ’Kristian’ furthermore, it is clear that he considers Denmark as a double standard, since Denmark has ’thrown its traditional values in the bin’. Therefore hesitates he is also calling himself dane. Yet he Extra the Magazine an appeal to Denmark to get help to get out of the jail in Syria:
– to the Danish state, that they must find a solution for us. It is just not good enough, that we are here. Not at all, he says, and puts questions to that framework down in the current debate on fremmedkrigernes future:
– Where will they throw us over, if they will not take us to Denmark?
Ekstra Bladet has been in touch with ‘That’ family, who do not want to contribute to this article.
the Extra Leaf has chosen to blur the accused ICE-warrior’s identity, as prisoners of war should be taken special consideration.
Close to the Danish Kristian from prison: My life in the caliphate
