Iraq has offered to try all foreign fighters held by the SDF. Several hundreds have been transferred for trial by Iraqi courts but none have so far been executed
Three Frenchmen have been sentenced to death by an Iraqi court after being found guilty of joining the Islamic State (IS) militant group.
The men - named as Kévin Gonot, Léonard Lopez and Salim Machou by AFP news agency - have 30 days to appeal.
They were among 12 French citizens captured in Syria by US-backed fighters. In February they were transferred to Iraq for trial.
The three are the first IS suspects from France to be sentenced to death.
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France has yet to react to Sunday's court ruling in Baghdad. But when pressed on the issue in February, French President Emmanuel Macron declined to comment, saying it was a sovereign matter for Iraq.
Human rights groups have heavily criticised the trials of suspected IS fighters in Iraq. Activists they say the courts often rely on circumstantial evidence or confessions made under duress.
What do we know about the three?
Gonot, 32, is from south-eastern France. He is believed to have entered Syria through Turkey to join the al-Nusra Front, a branch of al-Qaeda, before pledging allegiance to IS.
He was arrested in Syria with his mother, his wife, and his half-brother in December 2017. A French court has also sentenced him in absentia to nine years in prison.
Machou, 41, belonged to an IS cell composed of European fighters that has carried out attacks in Iraq and Syria and planned others in Paris and Brussels, according to the Centre d'Analyse du Terrorisme (CAT), a French think tank.
Lopez, a 32-year-old from Paris, also travelled with his wife and two children to IS-held Mosul in northern Iraq before entering Syria, CAT quotes French investigators as saying.
His lawyer, Nabil Boudi, condemned the trial as "summary justice". He told AFP news agency that the death sentence had been "based solely on a series of interrogations in Baghdad jails".
Why were they transferred to Iraq?
IS once controlled vast swathes of territory stretching across Syria and Iraq. After years of fighting, Iraq declared victory on its side of the border in late 2017.
On the Syrian side, the main offensive was led by a US-backed alliance of Arab and Kurdish fighters, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The group captured the last stronghold held by the jihadists in March.
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An estimated 1,000 foreign fighters - as well as many women and children - are estimated to be in SDF custody.
Iraq has offered to try all foreign fighters held by the SDF. Several hundreds have been transferred for trial by Iraqi courts but none have so far been executed.
More than 41,000 people from dozens of countries are estimated to have joined IS in Syria and Iraq - about a quarter of them women and children.
Almost 6,000 came from Western Europe.
Approximately 850 people from the UK were among them, including 145 women and 50 children.
The vast majority of IS militants are believed to have been either killed or captured. It is unclear how many foreigners have died.
Researchers suggest at least 7,000 have travelled back to their countries of origin.
Those countries have raised concerns about bringing hardened jihadists back and the challenges of gathering evidence to support prosecutions.
Source: BBC News, Staff, May 26, 2019
3 French IS members sentenced to death in Iraq
An Iraqi court on Sunday sentenced three French citizens to death after they were found guilty of joining the Islamic State group, the first IS members from France to be handed capital punishment, a court official said.
Captured in Syria by a US-backed force fighting the jihadists, Kevin Gonot, Leonard Lopez and Salim Machou were transferred to Iraq for trial. They have 30 days to appeal.
Iraq has taken custody of thousands of jihadists repatriated in recent months from neighbouring Syria, where they were caught by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces during the battle to destroy the IS "caliphate".
The Iraqi judiciary said earlier in May that it has tried and sentenced more than 500 foreign suspected IS members since the start of 2018.
Its courts have condemned many to life in prison and others to death, although no foreign IS members have yet been executed.
The trials have been criticised by rights groups, which say they often rely on evidence obtained through torture.
Those sentenced on Sunday were among 13 French nationals caught in battle-scarred eastern Syria and handed to Iraqi authorities in February on suspicion of being members of IS's feared contingent of foreign fighters.
One was later released as it was found he had travelled to Syria to support the Yazidi religious minority -- the target of a particularly brutal IS campaign that rights groups say may have amounted to genocide.
The remaining 12 were put on trial under Iraq's counterterrorism law, which can dole out the death penalty to anyone found guilty of joining a "terrorist" group, even if they were not explicitly fighting.
Trials criticised
Gonot, who fought for IS before being arrest in Syria with his mother, wife, and half-brother, has also been sentenced in absentia by a French court to nine years in prison, according to the French Terrorism Analysis Center (CAT).
Machou was a member of the infamous Tariq ibn Ziyad brigade, "a European foreign terrorist fighter cell" that carried out attacks in Iraq and Syria and planned others in Paris and Brussels, according to US officials.
Lopez, from Paris, travelled with his wife and two children to IS-held Mosul in northern Iraq before entering Syria, French investigators say.
Iraq declared victory over IS in late 2017 and began trying foreigners accused of joining the jihadists the following year.
Rights groups including Human Rights Watch have criticised Iraq's anti-terror trials, which they say often rely on circumstantial evidence or confessions obtained under torture.
Baghdad has offered to try all foreign fighters in SDF custody -- estimated at around 1,000 -- in exchange for millions of dollars, Iraqi government sources have told AFP.
Among those sentenced to life in prison are 58-year-old Frenchman Lahcen Ammar Gueboudj and 2 other French nationals.
Iraq has also tried thousands of its own nationals arrested on home soil for joining IS, including women, and begun trial proceedings for nearly 900 Iraqis repatriated from Syria.
The country remains in the top five "executioner" nations in the world, according to an Amnesty International report in April.
The number of death sentences issued by Iraqi courts more than quadrupled between 2017 and 2018, to at least 271.
But only 52 were actually carried out in 2018, according to Amnesty, compared with 125 the year before.
Analysts have also warned that prisons in Iraq have in the past acted as "academies" for future jihadists, including IS supremo Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Source: france24.com, May 26, 2019
Iraqi Court Sentences 3 French Members of IS to Death
An Iraqi judicial official says a Baghdad court has sentenced to death 3 French citizens, members of the Islamic State group.
The official says the 3, sentenced on Sunday, were among 13 French citizens handed over to Iraq in January by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak to the media. Iraqi President Barham Saleh had said during a February visit to Paris that the 13 will be prosecuted in accordance with Iraqi laws.
Thousands of men and women came from around the world to join IS when it declared its self-styled Islamic caliphate in 2014.
It wasn't immediately clear how France, which abolished the death penalty nearly 4 decades ago, will react to the sentencing of its citizens.
Source: Associated Press, May 26, 2019
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde