Iraqi court sentences six French nationals to life for IS group membership

An Iraqi ⁠court on ​Tuesday sentenced six French nationals to life in prison and ​a seventh to 15 years after convicting them of membership of the Islamic State (IS) group, a Reuters witness inside the courtroom said.

The men were ​among ‌47 French IS group suspects transferred from ⁠detention facilities in northeast Syria to Iraq last year under a broader relocation ‌arrangement coordinated by US forces and Iraqi authorities.

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The presiding ⁠judge said the sentences were imposed under Iraq's counterterrorism law for joining the IS group and spreading fear. He ​added that the court had opted for ‌life imprisonment rather than the death penalty because the defendants were young.

A seventh French national, aged 23, was given a 15-year sentence, ‌according to the Reuters witness.

Abbas al-Maliki, one of the lawyers for ​the defendants, said the group would appeal the sentence in the Court of Cassation.

Iraq opened the trial of the French ​nationals last month.

The IS group seized large parts of ​Iraq and Syria in 2014 before being ​driven from its self-declared caliphate by a US-led coalition and local forces in 2019. ​Many of the group's militants were detained, although remnants of the jihadist organisation continue to operate.

The US announced in January that it had begun transferring IS group detainees from ⁠Syria to Iraq amid concerns about the security of detention facilities in northeast Syria ⁠after Kurdish-led ​forces lost control of parts of the region.