Amandine Le Coz

Amandine Le Coz (born July 9, 1990) is a French convert to Islam who, in 2014, left her home in France and traveled to Syria to join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). In 2019, she and her toddler son were repatriated to France after spending a year and a half in a Kurdish detention camp. In 2023, Le Coz was sentenced to ten years in prison for joining ISIL. Le Coz was one of the first returnees from the Syrian civil war to be tried for her involvement in terrorism. Her ten-year sentence for criminal association with a view to preparing terrorist acts was slightly less than the eleven-year term the prosecution requested, and one-third of the maximum thirty-year sentence.

Early life and education Le Coz is originally from Domont in Val-d'Oise. She had dyslexia, She was the youngest of three children, but lost it after a few weeks because a driver's license was necessary and she had failed her driving test five times. Le Coz then went to work at a McDonald's near her parents' home and did lingerie photoshoots to build a portfolio as a model. Her father later said the family was “afraid” of the Muslim religion. Rettoun was also a close associate of Boubaker el Hakim, who planned attacks committed abroad. She adopted the nommes de guerre Sakina and Umm Nour. In March 2017, their son was born in Syria. French authorities offered to repatriate Le Coz's son without his mother. Le Coz refused and said, "If he leaves, I'll leave with him." Under the "Cazeneuve protocol", French ISIL members who are found in Turkey are expelled from that country and repatriated to France to face trial. A lawyer representing the repatriated women's families said they had "long wanted to return to France to face the consequences of their actions." As per the Cazeneuve protocol, on arrival the children were taken into the care of child protective services, and the women were taken into custody. While in care, Le Coz’s toddler son exhibited behaviors suggesting he’d been exposed to extreme violence; he shouted at and threatened his stuffed animals. Two years later, despite having been given support from psychologists, the boy was noted as being still deeply traumatized.