Trial opens in Baghdad for six French Islamic State suspects

A trial has opened in Baghdad for six French nationals accused of belonging to Islamic State, with the next hearing set for 5 October. The men are being tried in Iraq after being transferred from Syria last year, and prosecutors say they could face the death penalty if convicted of crimes against Iraq and the Iraqi people. Their lawyers are seeking their return to France, arguing that the case is moving too quickly and does not allow enough time to prepare a defence.

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The six are part of a larger group of 47 French nationals moved from Syria to Iraq last year, where many suspected Islamic State members were already being held. According to investigators, they travelled via Turkey before entering Syria and later joined the group. They were arrested by Syrian Kurdish forces between 2018 and 2019 during the collapse of the self-proclaimed caliphate, before being handed over to Iraqi authorities.

Iraq then brought charges against them for membership of a terrorist organisation. The case comes against the backdrop of Iraq's long-running campaign against Islamic State, whose fighters carried out mass killings in Iraq and Syria in 2014 and subjected many women and girls to sexual slavery. Iraq, backed by US-led forces, declared victory over the group in 2017, and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces said two years later that it had also been defeated in Syria.

Iraqi courts have since handed down hundreds of death sentences and life terms in terrorism cases, including against foreign fighters, making the Baghdad proceedings part of a wider pattern of prosecutions linked to the group's collapse. The trial also has diplomatic significance because it involves French nationals being prosecuted in Iraq rather than being returned home. In 2019, 11 French nationals were sentenced to death in Iraq before those sentences were commuted to life imprisonment.

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More recently, more than 5,700 suspected Islamic State members from over 60 countries were transferred to Iraq by the United States after years in detention in Syria, showing that the issue of foreign detainees remains active even after the territorial defeat of the group. The opening of the case came a week after an official visit to France by Iraqi Prime Minister Ali Al-Zaidi. During the visit on 13 and 14 September, Iraq and France said they wanted to strengthen their strategic partnership and ties of friendship, according to the French presidency.

That timing gives the trial added sensitivity, as it touches both on counter-terrorism cooperation and on how states handle foreign nationals accused of joining armed groups abroad. What remains unclear is how quickly the court will move and whether the defendants' lawyers will succeed in pressing for repatriation. The next hearing on 5 October is likely to be closely watched for any sign of how the judges intend to handle the evidence and the defence arguments.

It is also not yet clear whether the case will follow the same path as earlier French prosecutions in Iraq, where death sentences were later reduced to life terms.

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