More than 500 foreign IS members convicted in Iraq: court

AFP  |  Baghdad 

The Iraqi judiciary has tried and sentenced more than 500 foreigners since the start of 2018 for joining the Islamic State group, the country's announced on Wednesday.

It said "514 verdicts were issued, for both men and women, while another 202 accused are still being interrogated and 44 are still being tried." Another 11 were acquitted and released, it said.

The statement referred to "different nationalities" but did not list any specific

It said interrogations were taking about six months for those simply accused of IS membership, but anyone accused of actively taking part in the jihadist group's operations could be questioned for up to a year.

declared victory over IS in late 2017 and began trying foreigners accused of joining the jihadist faction the following year.

It has condemned many to life in prison, including 58-year-old Frenchman Lahcen and two other French nationals.

It has also issued death sentences for other foreign IS members, although they have not yet been carried out.

Among those awaiting trial in are 12 accused French IS members, who were caught in and transferred to Iraqi custody in February.

Government source have told AFP that would be willing to try all foreigners currently held in Kurdish detention in northeast for a price.

Around 1,000 suspected foreign IS fighters are in detention in northeast Syria, in addition to around 9,000 foreign women and children in camps there.

Rights groups including have criticised the trials, which they say often rely on circumstantial evidence or confessions obtained under torture.

Wednesday's statement by the court "urged all trials of foreign terrorists to be moved to Baghdad, as most of the embassies are in the capital and so embassy representatives from the terrorists' can attend the sessions." has also already tried thousands of its own nationals arrested on home soil for joining IS, including women.

It has begun trial proceedings for nearly 900 Iraqis repatriated from and sentenced four to death last month under its counter-law.

The country remains in the top five "executioner" nations in the world, according to an International report released last month.

The number of death sentences issued by Iraqi courts more than quadrupled from 65 in 2017 to at least 271 last year.

But fewer were actually carried out, according to Amnesty, with 52 executions in 2018 compared to 125 in 2017.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

First Published: Wed, May 08 2019. 17:25 IST