appConfigEntityId

bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

hooksArticlePageAdvertisementConfigArticle

liveArticle

appConfig

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

sponsorType

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

sectionsV2

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

json

Agence France-Presse

A court in Iraq on Sunday sentenced three French citizens to death after they were found guilty of joining the Islamic State group, a court official said.
Captured in Syria by a United States-backed force fighting the jihadists, Kevin Gonot, Leonard Lopez and Salim Machou were transferred to Iraq for trial. They have 30 days to appeal.
Iraq has taken custody of thousands of jihadists repatriated in recent months from neighbouring Syria, where they were caught by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces during the battle to destroy the Isis “caliphate”.
The Iraqi judiciary said earlier in May that it has tried and sentenced more than 500 suspected foreign members of Isis since the start of 2018.
Islamic State establishes ‘province’ in India for the first time
Its courts have condemned many to life in prison and others to death, although no foreign Isis members have yet been executed.
The trials have been criticised by rights groups, which say they often rely on evidence obtained through torture.
They have also raised the question of whether suspected IS jihadists should be tried in the region or repatriated to their countries of origin, in the face of strong public opposition.

Those sentenced on Sunday were among 13 citizens from France caught in battle-scarred eastern Syria and handed to Iraqi authorities in February on suspicion of being members of IS’s feared contingent of foreign fighters.
One was later released as it was found he had travelled to Syria to support the Yazidi religious minority – the target of a particularly brutal IS campaign that rights groups say may have amounted to genocide.
The remaining 12 were put on trial under Iraq’s counterterrorism law, which can dole out the death penalty to anyone found guilty of joining a “terrorist” group, even if they were not explicitly fighting.
TRIALS CRITICISED
Gonot, who fought for Isis before being arrested in Syria with his mother, wife, and half-brother, has also been sentenced in absentia by a French court to nine years in prison, according to French research group the Centre for the Analysis of Terrorism.
Machou was a member of the infamous Tariq ibn Ziyad brigade, “a European foreign terrorist fighter cell” that carried out attacks in Iraq and Syria and planned others in Paris and Brussels, according to US officials.
Terror plot by Islamic State ‘wolf pack’ in Malaysia foiled, police say
Lopez, from Paris, travelled with his wife and two children to IS-held Mosul in northern Iraq before entering Syria, French investigators say.
His lawyer, Nabil Boudi, condemned the trial as “summary justice”.
The French government had “guaranteed us that French citizens would all be entitled to a fair trial, even in Iraq”, he said.
But Lopez had been sentenced to death “based solely on a series of interrogations in Baghdad jails”, he said.
Iraq declared victory over Isis in late 2017 and began trying foreigners accused of joining the jihadists the following year.
Indian, Bangladeshi security experts unfazed by Islamic State
Rights groups including Human Rights Watch have criticised Iraq’s anti-terror trials, which they say often rely on circumstantial evidence or confessions obtained under torture.
Baghdad has offered to try all foreign fighters in SDF custody – estimated at around 1,000 – in exchange for millions of dollars, Iraqi government sources have said.
Among those sentenced to life in prison are 58-year-old Frenchman Lahcen Ammar Gueboudj and two other French nationals.
Iraq has also tried thousands of its own nationals arrested on home soil for joining Isis, including women, and begun trial proceedings for nearly 900 Iraqis repatriated from Syria.
‘Long battle’ ahead: Islamic State leader appears in first video in 5 years
The country remains in the top five “executioner” nations in the world, according to an Amnesty International report in April.
The number of death sentences issued by Iraqi courts more than quadrupled between 2017 and 2018, to at least 271.
But only 52 were actually carried out in 2018, according to Amnesty, compared with 125 the year before.
Analysts have also warned that prisons in Iraq have in the past acted as “academies” for future jihadists, including Isis supremo Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.


Islamic State-linked Australian women charged with keeping slave in Syria

Australia warns of arrests as 13 people linked to Isis set to return from Syria

Mali’s junta leader says situation ‘under control’ in first appearance since attacks

Austria Islamic State man admits plot on Taylor Swift concert in Vienna

Islamic State

Iraqi court sentences three French Islamic State members to death

A member of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces removes an Islamic State group flag in Tabqa, Syria. Photo: AFP

Items which were used by Islamic state militants are seen at a museum opened by the Engineering Unit of Peshmerga forces in Erbil, Iraq May 12, 2019. Picture taken May 12, 2019. REUTERS/Azad Lashkari

News

World

Middle East

The French nationals were captured in Syria by a US-backed force fighting the jihadists and were transferred to Iraq for trial
The three men have 30 days to appeal the sentence


The three men were captured in Syria by a US-backed force fighting the jihadists and were transferred to Iraq for trial.


Islamic militancy

Iraq

France

Iraqi court sentences three French Islamic State members to death

.css-1mniedq{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;}The French nationals were captured in Syria by a US-backed force fighting the jihadists and were transferred to Iraq for trial The three men have 30 days to appeal the sentence

The French nationals were captured in Syria by a US-backed force fighting the jihadists and were transferred to Iraq for trial

The three men have 30 days to appeal the sentence