Baghdad court sentences nine French nationals in ISIL cases — Asharq Al-Awsat

In Iraq, Baghdad’s Karkh Criminal Court handed down the first verdicts to nine French nationals accused of belonging to the ISIL group. They were sentenced to prison terms of up to 20 years, Asharq Al-Awsat reports.

The trials of 47 French nationals transferred from Syria to Iraq last year began in September. All of them are accused of ties to the group that controlled significant territories of Iraq and Syria in 2014–2017. At the time of publication, fewer than half of the defendants had appeared before the court.

First verdicts

One of the defendants, aged 24, received 15 years in prison. According to the publication, his mother took him to Syria more than ten years ago. After the verdict was announced, he told the court that his mother had made the decision to go to Syria.

Among the defendants is 42-year-old Kamel Ben Mbarek, who told the court that he worked as a driver for ISIL police in the Syrian city of Raqqa. Another defendant, 28-year-old Adel Bouaoun, accused of taking part in ISIL operations in Aleppo and Palmyra, expressed remorse. He also described harsh detention conditions in Kurdish prisons in Syria and alleged physical and psychological torture.

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Criticism of the procedure

Human rights organizations have criticized the trial, calling it rushed and saying that confessions may have been obtained under duress. One of the defendants, 34-year-old Lahdar Sebouai, told the court that the recorded testimony was not his.

French lawyers Matthieu Bagard and Marie Dosé, who represent many of the 47 French nationals, said in October that Iraqi judicial authorities had not allowed them to attend the hearings. They are seeking the defendants’ return to France for their cases to be heard there. Human rights advocates also fear that some defendants could be sentenced to death.

Those awaiting a verdict include Adrien Guihal. According to the publication, he claimed responsibility on behalf of ISIL for the attack in Nice in July 2016, when a truck drove into a crowd during Bastille Day celebrations and killed 86 people.