Two held for aiding girl’s Syria travel plans

Police in The Hague have arrested two people for encouraging a 15-year-old girl to travel to Syria.

A press release on politie.nl said that the arrest was prompted after her concerned relatives alerted officers in their community about her plans. The officers spoke to her and her parents in mid-December and were able to convince her not to go. Probing further, police learned that the two suspects had given the girl the money from to travel to the war-stricken Islamic nation. The unnamed 17-year-old woman and 20-year-old man were arrested early Tuesday morning at a house in the city for intent to withhold a minor from her guardianship. Politie.nl did not say if the girl had intended to join the ongoing rebellion against President Bashar Assad. Since the war started there have been several reports of people who traveled to Syria to join the rebels. Last October a court in Rotterdam convicted two men who had attempted to join the fighting in Syria, one charged with plan to commit murder, other with preparing to detonate explosives; Prosecutors said then that the verdict set a precedent that will help other such cases in the future.