BAGHDAD — Three French nationals were sentenced to life in prison in Iraq on Thursday for belonging to Islamic State, with their lawyers and French embassy representatives present at the hearing, a court statement said, Reuters reported.

Source: Reuters via KRRO

Thursday's sentences are a new verdict in the same trial series Awaaz Punjab reported on Tuesday, 27 October, when an Iraqi court sentenced six French nationals from the same group to life in prison and a seventh to 15 years for Islamic State membership. The three sentenced on Thursday are a separate batch of defendants, and Reuters did not name them in its report.

Source: Reuters via BusinessDay

All of the defendants were among 47 French Islamic State suspects transferred from detention facilities in northeast Syria to Iraq last year, Reuters reported.

3French nationals given life sentences on Thursday
47French suspects transferred from Syria to Iraq last year
10French defendants sentenced in this series so far this week — seven on Tuesday, three on Thursday

Islamic State 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, Reuters noted. Many of its fighters were detained, but remnants of the organisation continue to operate.

The United States announced in January that it was completing the transfer of Islamic State detainees from Syria to Iraq amid concerns about the security of their detention facilities after Kurdish-led forces lost control of parts of the region, Reuters reported — the transfer programme that brought the 47 French suspects to Baghdad for trial.

What happens next

With 10 of the 47 transferred French suspects now sentenced, hearings for the remaining defendants are the next step in the series; the first batch's lawyers said on Tuesday that they would appeal.