Iraq: Life sentences for 3 French 'Islamic State' suspects

Many countries are still grappling with how to treat citizens stranded after the so-called Islamic State collapsedImage: Baderkhan Ahmad/AP Photo/picture allianceAdvertisementThree French nationals on Thursday received sentences of life imprisonment in Iraq after being convicted of joining the so-called "Islamic State" terror group.

The criminal court in Baghdad sentence Charly S., Kamal M, and Amir A. to life terms in prison which amounts to 20 years of imprisonment in Iraq.

The trio were found guilty of "the crime of joining the terrorist Islamic State organisation and of having contributed, together with members of the group, to spreading terror," an AFP correspondent said.

Tuesday saw another six French nationals from the same group sentenced to life in prison and a seventh to 15 years for belonging ​to the Islamist militant group.

All of the French nationals sentenced thus far belong to a group of 47 French nationals who were transferred from detention in Syria last year.

The militant group carried out a campaign of terror as it sought to establish a self-proclaimed caliphate in Iraq and Syria from 2014 under its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Thousands of foreign nationals from across the world joined the group, which carried out mass executions and other atrocities, many of them filmed and shared on social media platforms.

Among its most heinous crimes was the capture and killing of thousands of Yazidis in Iraq’s northern Sinjar region. Many Yazidi women and children were forced into sexual slavery and other forms of enslavement.

In 2014, IS also captured and killed hundreds of Iraqi military cadets at Camp Speicher in Iraq's Tikrit in 2014, much of the massacre filmed and shared on social media.

The terror group also carried out a series of executions of Western journalists and aid workers in highly choreographed videos as part of its media campaign. 

Iraq, backed by US-led forces, proclaimed victory over IS in 2017, and along with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces would go on to ultimately defeat the group territorially in Syria two years later.

The remaining fighters were eventually cornered and defeated in Baghouz in Syria's eastern Deir Ezzor, near the Iraqi border in March, 2019.