Iraq to try IS detainees, including 13 French nationals
Thirteen French ‘ISIS jihadis’ will go on trial in Iraq after being moved there from Kurdish-controlled jails in Syria – as Macron washes his hands of them
- French ISIS fighters suspected of fighting for militant group to be tried in Iraq
- Group of 13 ISIS fighters to be tried in Iraq after being transferred from Syria
- Iraqi official confirmed militants will be put on trial for crimes committed in Iraq
A group of 13 French citizens accused of fighting for ISIS are to be tried in Iraq rather than face charges in their homeland.
All Islamic State group militants who committed crimes against Iraq will be put on trial in that country, Iraq’s president said Monday.
The group including 13 suspected French militants have been transferred to Iraq from Syria.
Iraqi President Barham Saleh said during a two-day visit to France that the French citizens were handed over from Syria, where troops with US-led coalition forces detained them.
The 13 will be prosecuted in accordance with Iraqi laws, he said.
French president Emmanuel Macron (right) greets Iraqi President Barham Saleh before a meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris on Monday
The fighters, who were turned over to Iraq after being seized by Syrian Kurdish forces, ‘will be judged according to Iraqi law,’ Saleh told a news conference after talks with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris.
Saleh said: ‘Anyone who is accused of committing crimes against Iraq, against Iraqi installations and against Iraqi personnel, we definitively are seeking them. And seeking to try them, of course.’
At a news conference with Saleh, French President Emmanuel Macron said he would not identify the French citizens nor comment on their cases.
He said it’s Iraq’s sovereign decision to decide whether the alleged militants should face the criminal justice system in the Mideast country.
An intelligence official said the Iraqi government has 13 French IS militants in custody after they were transferred from Syria a month ago.
An Iraqi security official confirmed the report on Monday and said the militants will be put on trial for crimes committed inside Iraq.
Iraqi President Barham Saleh was on a two-day visit to France with a focus on the country’s security and the fight against the Islamic State group in the region
There were no details on their identities. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.
The US has called for countries to take back and try their own nationals. France’s official position states that French ‘terrorist’ fighters ‘must be tried wherever they committed their crimes,’ according to the French foreign affairs ministry.
The issue of captured foreign fighters in Syria poses a major conundrum for countries whose nationals have been imprisoned in the country.
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The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces is holding more than 900 foreign fighters in prisons it runs in the country’s north, many of them Iraqis and Europeans.
According to an Iraqi government statement issued Monday, about 280 Iraqi IS militants have been handed over by the SDF to Iraq in two successive batches last week, out of an estimated more than 500.
Saleh told a news conference after talks with President Macron in Paris that the 13 fighters, who were turned over to Iraq after being seized by Syrian Kurdish forces, ‘will be judged according to Iraqi law’
Also last week, a French diplomatic official and a SDF official said they were trying to verify reports that Fabien Clain, a Frenchman who is one of Europe’s most-wanted members of IS, was killed in an airstrike in Syria.
Macron insisted France will keep supporting Iraq as it faces security and stability challenges while rebuilding in areas that had been controlled by IS.
Both countries also are seeking to strengthen their economic cooperation.
France remains militarily involved in Iraq through training and logistical support of Iraqi forces and intelligence missions.
An Iraqi government source in Baghdad said on Monday that 14 French fighters had been brought to Iraq by the US-backed forces trying to dislodge IS jihadists from their last bastion in Syria.
France has long maintained that any of its nationals caught in Syria or Iraq should be tried locally, a stance which critics say could leave them facing the death penalty, which is outlawed in France.
Macron reiterated this position Monday, saying that ‘it is up to the authorities of these countries to decide, sovereignly [sic], if they will be tried there’.
British jihadi bride Shamima Begum with her week-old son, Jerah, in al-Hawl refugee camp for captured ISIS wives and children in Kurdish-controlled Syria
‘These people are entitled to benefit from our consular protection, and our diplomatic service will be mobilised,’ he added.
Macron also said he would visit Iraq in the coming months, after France announced in January that it would provide one billion euros ($1.1 billion) in reconstruction funds for the war-ravaged country.
The announcement by the Iraqi government comes as many Western counties try to decide what to do with its citizens returning from fighting with the so-called Islamic State as the militant group’s remaining strongholds collapse.
In Britain, the authorities have been dragged into legal wrangling and soul-searching over the fate of jihadi bride, Shamima Begum, and her newborn son.
Despite begging to be allowed to return to Britain after fleeing to the so-called caliphate from Bethnal Green, east London, aged 15, she was stripped of her citizenship by Sajid Javid.
Donald Trump urged European countries to take back their suspected fighters and try them in their own countries, threatening that otherwise US-backed forces in Syria would release the militants.
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