TUNIS // A Tunisian was flown home for trial on Saturday after his arrest in Turkey for allegedly joining ISIL, days after his father was killed in the Istanbul airport attack while searching for him.
“Anouar Bayoudh arrived in Tunis at 00.30am (local time) with his girlfriend. They were taken to the investigation unit for terrorist crimes at the National Guard,” said prosecution spokesman Sofiene Sliti.
Mr Bayoudh was to appear before a magistrate later on Saturday and both he and his girlfriend were to be charged with “joining a terrorist organisation and involvement in terrorist crimes”, Mr Sliti said.
The 26-year-old has no idea that his father Fathi was buried on Friday after being killed along with 43 others in a gun and bomb attack at Istanbul’s Ataturk airport on Tuesday.
The military doctor had been in Turkey looking for Anouar, after he and his wife learnt late last year that their son had joined ISIL in Iraq and then in Syria.
But Anouar had a change of heart after he realised the extremists were “monsters”, his mother has said.
The young man turned himself in to the rebel Free Syrian Army after realising that he no longer wanted to be part of ISIL, and was detained in Turkey.
His father was waiting for his wife at Ataturk airport on Tuesday when the attackers struck. It followed months of trips back-and-forth to Turkey by Fathi to try to find his son.
There has been no claim of responsibility for the attack, but authorities say evidence points to ISIL.
Tunisia has also been the victim of attacks claimed by ISIL, and it is thought that thousands of Tunisians have travelled to neighbouring Libya, Iraq or Syria to join ISIL or its rival Al Qaeda.
* Agence France-Presse