French extremist tried for executions of the Islamic State

Dand mustache and trimmed black beard, wearing a white sweater, 32-year-old Othman Garrido, is accused of having participated in the public execution of two Iranians in Syria in 2015, and of decapitating a third victim in an undetermined location and date, and may be sentenced to life imprisonment.

The trial, scheduled to last until September 21, will rekindle the memories of the years of terror imposed by the EI in the 2010s in vast areas of Syria and Iraq.

Like some 1,500 Frenchmen, Othman Garrido, a native of Montpellier, traveled to areas controlled by the former “califate” of the IS.

He fought there before being arrested and expelled by Turkey to France in 2020. The father, a Franco-Spanish convert to Islam, died as a suicide bomber in 2016, and the two brothers were killed in combat.

Garrido will have to provide clarifications on photos found on the phone, which will have belonged to the woman, whom he married, in the areas controlled by the IS, and had two children.

Main elements of prosecution, these images were delivered on a hard drive to French investigators by the Americans, who led the international coalition responsible for defeating the IS in 2019.

One of them shows a man with a face partially covered in a handkerchief, in front of a decapitated corpse and the victim's head at his feet. The man points the index finger to the sky, in a sign of loyalty to the IS, and has blood on his hands, and can therefore be considered the author of the murder, according to the investigation.

Othman Garrido admitted that there was a similarity, but he always denied being the alleged tormentor of the photo, referring to the possibility of being one of the brothers.

The photo has no date or geolocation, the victim's identity remains unknown and the experts were unable to formally identify the hooded man.

Another part of the process deals with the murder of two Iranians [during the Syrian civil war, Iran supported the Bashar al-Assad regime], executed in a public square in 2015 in Al-Qaryatayn, in central Syria, by the EI.

Several photos taken from the same phone show a group of extremists posing around the corpses, with their severed heads placed on the bodies.

Othman Garrido appears smiling in the images, holding by the shoulders the two executioners, two French extremists, Yacine Rettoun and Oumar Diaw, presumably dead.

There are also photos of Garrido in a van that took the Iranians to the execution site. He admitted he witnessed the act.

Born in a family immersed in extremist ideology, Othman Garrido had a childhood marked by religious radicalization and left school at age 12 to work in fairs with his father.

Having left for Syria at the age of 18, in 2012, he joined the al-Nusra Front, the Syrian arm of the Al-Qaida terrorist network, and later the IS, after the break between the two groups.

Convicted in 2017, in a separate case, to 15 years of imprisonment for having entered the IS, participated in combats and incited Muslims in France to commit violent acts, Othman Garrido, who was in Syria at the time of that trial, should be tried again, now with his presence, in this case on 22 September.