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

An Iraqi court has sentenced six French nationals to life in prison for membership of the Islamic State (IS) group, according to a source. The men were among 47 French IS group suspects transferred from detention facilities in northeast Syria to Iraq last year under a relocation arrangement coordinated by US forces and Iraqi authorities.

A seventh French national, aged 23, was given a 15-year sentence, according to a Reuters witness. The presiding judge said the sentences were imposed under Iraq's counterterrorism law for joining the IS group and spreading fear.

The court opted for life imprisonment rather than the death penalty because the defendants were young, the judge added. 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.