BAGHDAD: An Iraqi court on Thursday sentenced three French nationals to life in prison after convicting them of joining the Islamic State (IS) group, bringing to 10 the number of French citizens sentenced in Iraq from a group transferred from Syria last year.
The criminal court in Baghdad’s Karkh district sentenced Charly Sun, Kamal Ben Mbarek and Amir Amine Dali Amar to life imprisonment. Under Iraqi law, a life sentence amounts to 20 years in prison.
The three were found guilty of joining the IS group and contributing to spreading terror alongside its members, according to AFP.
Charly Sun’s sister, Carole Sun, was repatriated to France from north-eastern Syria and sentenced to 10 years in prison last December. She had joined the jihadist group in 2014 alongside her brother, when both were teenagers.
On Tuesday, an Iraqi court sentenced six other French nationals to life imprisonment and handed a seventh a 15-year prison term on similar charges.
All 10 French nationals sentenced so far were among 47 French citizens transferred from Syria to Iraq last year. The group also includes Adrien Guihal, who claimed responsibility on behalf of IS for the 2016 attack in Nice, France.
Iraqi prisons are overcrowded with suspected terrorists, including members of IS. The country has recently received thousands more detainees transferred from neighbouring Syria.
French lawyers representing some of the defendants have raised concerns about due process, arguing that their clients were denied fair trials.
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IS swept across Syria and Iraq in 2014, carrying out massacres and forcing women and girls into sexual slavery. Iraq, backed by a US-led coalition, declared victory over IS in 2017. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces later defeated the group’s territorial control in Syria in 2019.
However, Iraq continues to grapple with the legacy of IS, as mass graves are still being uncovered and accounts of atrocities committed by the group remain to be fully investigated.
