How autistic Thierry K. came to IS

"This man was waiting for the door," says Chantal. "He said that Thierry had been spotted at the Greek-Turkish border and that they thought he would join IS." It can not be true, "I say." Sir, you must understand: my son is severely handicapped. ""

Thierry – who fainted after passing his finger in the kitchen garden on a thorn and seeing a drop of blood gush. Who in Albert Heijn uses a special app that calculates the best route along the runs, and if a product is missing in panic, his mother calls.

Thierry, their Thierry, went to Syria ?

How?

Otherwise he was still … When Thierry is about seven years old, the bus of the dentist is parked in front of his elementary school, he receives a fluoride treatment. Bite a little, wait, rinse. But Thierry fainted. Shaking, he lies down on the ground, the bit wedged between his jaws.

It is tested for epilepsy; there is no question of that. Thierry, later, is strongly autistic.

He grows up to become a retired teenager. Never boyfriend. Fear of the world. With difficulty, he struggles through elementary school and later VMBO – the antitype of his popular sister, with whom everything happens. Thierry is lonely, extremely adherent to his parents, especially to Chantal. He can never be without his mother. When she takes a shower, Thierry is sitting cross-legged in front of the door waiting for her to come out. "Thierry was my shadow."

The AIVD was right. Due to an error – justice arrives too late with an arrest warrant – Thierry is not arrested, but sent back to the Turkish border. Another attempt succeeds. One day after the visit, on May 13, 2015, Chantal phoned a telephone. Whatsapp: " Hi Mom, if this happens to you, I am in Syria.I left to help the Muslims and be with the other Muslims.I can not call in the coming period because that is. is dangerous with the plane and that there is no reach everywhere.I can contact you as soon as possible.This is the place i want to be, i dont I do not want to come back Do not worry about me, I'm well cared for Greetings to daddy, sister and everyone "

Panic Attack

A l & # 39, age of seventeen, Thierry began an internship in the kitchen of a ministry. A desaster. He wants every shrimp to be exactly the same size, that no paw can pass, symmetrically on the plate. "This is not a five-star restaurant," the chef told him. Thierry, frustrated, is sent home after three months.

He denies his autism. To prove that he is "normal", he leaves holes in his ears – he's like death for needles – and he gets his driver's license. But when they fly to Mauritius, Chantal's homeland, he suffers a panic attack in the plane.

People sometimes abuse him. Ask for favors or money, his phone, your bike – so he obeys. "Thierry can not do much," says Chantal. "He is sweet, if I asked him to kill a snail in the kitchen garden, he would not dare to do it … just that he …"

It started with a girl. Thierry is a handsome boy. Known for it is good for him, says Chantal: if someone looks like this from the outside, it can hardly be imagined that things are unbalanced from the inside out. It often takes time for people to go to Thierry.

On the street in Zoetermeer, he is repeatedly approached by scouts from a casting agency. S & # 39; he already thought about modeling. "He has such a tight face," says Chantal. "The weird thing is that it's precisely because of his autism, he's constantly energized." Thierry drops some test shots, but lightning makes him sick.

Because of his appearance, he also gets a lot of attention from the girls, but when they get to know him better, they usually get noticed.While he comes home with someone around his twenty-first, unexpectedly, as Thierry does, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. "A darling of a child," says Chantal. Wonderful. Somali roots. His grandmother told Thierry: you come with my granddaughter, so you have to read the Koran. Well, if you say something like that to Thierry, he'll do it. "

Preacher

Zoetermeer is at the time a fertile breeding ground for radicalization.This applies to dozens of the 305 'Dutch' travelers who left for the EI. 39 The most famous example is that of Laura H., who was one of the few to return with her two children

A prominent role is reserved for the Al-Qibla mosque, a discreet building surrounded by of galleries, and later Mohamed Talbi, a licensed preacher This fifties has proven to teach young people in the jihadist way of thinking. "Thierry spoke only of him," says Ted. "He was the idol of this man. He had Arabic classes, he said. "

On August 16, 2013, they will go to the police.Channel and Ted see their son change.They say that Thierry is under the influence of this imam, that they are worried about it. "There was not much with that."

Thierry's experience in Islam changes the relationship with his girlfriend Why does she wear a headscarf someday and the other no – the rules are clear – Thierry becomes confused – you can not be a little Muslim after all?

After a quarrel, she gets out. "Grab anyway," says (19659002) After Thierry drove his car, his parents see how he goes further in Islam: he is ritually converted, his beard grows up, he wears Islamic clothes on Friday … Eat halal. all day he talks about the Zoetermeer Mosque where all the boys are so kind to him

Friends on the Ground

"I am a believer," says Chantal. "Catholic. This is how I was raised in Mauritius. I am open to all the religions of the world. Thierry is baptized, communion is even a temporal server.

"When Islam came into his life, we were initially happy," says Chantal. "He had been so unhappy, his straight lines, the regularity of praying five times a day, gave him something to remember, but if you take just as literally as Thierry, there is also danger."

Good sure, radicalization has been haunted by their heads. How do faith and autism go together? They make an appointment with the Autism Center to discuss it. "They said," Do not worry. Thierry is so passive that it will not happen to him. "But once left, one of them said: yes ma'am, we were already afraid of that."

Certainly thirteen boys of the group around the preacher Mohamed Talbi left finally to the combat zone in Syria and Iraq. Also Talbi himself. The public prosecutor has now built a kind of organizational chart of this "Zoetermeer group". It is there that Thierry is central. Or rather, his house.

Talbi and his entourage were refused through Zoetermeer because of their radical opinions. He was no longer welcome in the mosque, the municipality refused to rent gyms. They had to look for a new location. It was Thierry K.'s apartment, which he rented from his Wajong allowance, just away from his parents. Plans to go to Syria were forged in Thierry's living room according to police.

"We heard at that time, for the first time in his life, talk about friends who came to visit him," says Chantal. "We were so happy for him."

Training Camp

A month after the first application, Chantal and Ted get back in touch with their son. He was at the Islamic State's training camp, he said, obligatory for all the men who arrived: "Wake up at five in the morning, train, run, push, do some training." ;exercise." Thierry did not go well. They only put it in the kitchen, he says.

Thierry asks his mother to take pictures of his medical file and to transmit it. He has to prove that he does not want, that there is really something going on with him. "You do not have any emergency services here." Chantal takes a picture of each page of her file. "Thanks, Mom, and he was gone again."

The weeks remain silent, sometimes they suddenly receive news. The contact is always based on Thierry. He has to go to the cybercafe, and it is difficult: he can not usually leave his bosses. He may not have his own SIM card, he says.

Thierry lives for a moment in the Iraqi city of Mosul, his parents have a good time. He works there as a cleaner. It is exploited. "He has never been free," he said. Work, work, work. All day, every day. He said: I'm so tired, Mom, I'm so tired. "

What can you do as a parent?" Your most vulnerable child on the other side of the world – and he chose it himself. "We all received psychological help." says Chantal, "When I take a terrace somewhere, I feel guilty. I'm eating a sandwich here, and my child may not have anything at all. "

In October 2016, he is tired of it." Thierry is no longer possible, he says. "Chantal sends him the address of the Dutch consulate in Erbil, but he wants to go to Raqqa," he writes. Syria They do not go out of their heads.

A few weeks later, he reports that he was fired from Raqqa. They told him that he should pay his contract as a cleaner. [19659002] The last message his mother received on December 16, 2016: " There are so many everyday bombs every day, but if Allah does not want death, I will not die. (…) You do not have to worry about whether I died when you do not hear anything from me for a long time, because if I'm dead you hear it. Allah sends you a message about it . "

Séance

A few days after Chantal and Ted received the writ of summons for the trial of Thierry, they are again unexpectedly visited. "AIVD. He brings bad news." We are 95% sure that Thierry is dead, "says the man.He can not give much details.This would have happened in Syria.

The boy who had hung on to her until she screamed madly, who was waiting for the shower door, left Chantal: "How to live without shadow? "

The trial will continue – more than a year and a half after his disappearance, and a week after Chantal and Ted were confidentially informed by the secret services of his probable death. There is no mention of this during the session.

It is a record company: besides Thierry, there is twelve other travelers, all in absentia. The penalties are read as a result. Six, six, six, six. Then it is the turn of Thierry K. "It is obvious that he is a person who has struggled to get up in many areas," says the officer. "It also did not work optimally in conflict areas." Thierry has "a particular naïveté" and "a great dependence vis-à-vis the others". That's why, she says, the prosecutor is asking for a different sentence for him.

He was found guilty last Thursday. Thierry K., dead or alive, is not six, but four