Handling Deportants and Returnees of Former Foreign Terrorist Fighter: International and Domestic Law Perspectives

Abstract

The defeat of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) after the last war in Baghouz, Syria, by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in 2019 was not the end of the problem of global terrorism today. ISIS, which has sympathizers from different countries, currently leaves the problem of handling its deportees and returnees, including in Indonesia. This paper intends to examine the problems of deportants and returnees of former Foreign Terrorist Fighters (FTF) in Indonesia normatively, focusing on the political aspects of law, positive criminal law, and international criminal law. Based on the type of normative research, legislative, comparative, and conceptual approaches, this paper argues that the handling of deportants and returnees of former foreign terrorist fighters in Indonesia within the framework of positive criminal law still seems to be dominated by a paradigm of legal thinking that leans on aspects of restraint and retribution rather than prioritizing aspects of reformation and deterrence. In addition, positive criminal law instruments are still not sufficiently accommodating in supporting law enforcement in handling deportants and returnees of former FTFs in Indonesia.