French Daesh fighters arrested in Iraq will be tried on the spot (Le Drian)
(B2 with AFP) The French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs visiting Iraq insisted on Monday (February 12) that French jihadists arrested in Iraq be tried there. The fact that the death penalty is still in the Iraqi legal arsenal is not a sufficient factor to justify repatriation.
Two French women and a Chechen seeking asylum in France are being held in the Iraqi capital for having joined the Islamic State (IS) group and are awaiting trial. They face the death penalty.
Women who did not come for tourism
"These women were fighters against France. They did not come to Iraq for tourism. They came to Iraq to fight our values“said Jean-Yves Le Drian on the sidelines of a visit dedicated to the reconstruction of Iraq.They will have to be judged on the scene of their crimes, that is to say in Iraq", he insisted, recalling that only the children of jihadists were likely to be repatriated to France. "It is true that the death penalty exists in Iraq but it also exists in the United States. This is not a specific case", he noted. France has adopted the same position for the French jihadists arrested in Syria.
No application of the death penalty
The minister, however, specified that France always made its opposition to capital punishment known and that he would raise the issue with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi. "As every time a French person is potentially sentenced (to death), we act very strongly to make our position known. But for the moment the procedure has not startedin Iraq, he noted.
... but no repatriation to France
This position does not mean repatriation to France, to serve their sentence, if the death penalty is pronounced. On the contrary... it is rather a question of obtaining from the authorities that they do not pronounce the death penalty. The Minister of Justice Nicole Belloubet had thus assured on January 28, on the set of the Grand Jury RTL-LCI-Le Figaro, that if French jihadists are sentenced to death in Iraq or Syria, France would negotiate with the local authorities, without expressly indicating that they would be repatriated to France. The only criterion was the existence of a " fair trial ».
Several dozen French people arrested in Iraq or Syria, including minors
A few dozen French people are currently in camps or prisons in Iraq and Syria, as Jean-Yves Le Drian had already indicated earlier this week (read: A hundred French jihadist fighters in the hands of the Kurds (Le Drian)) The new point released by the French authorities – “a source familiar with the matter” as indicated by AFP – is the existence in these camps of “several dozen minors”.
France does not want repatriation
Which isn't really a surprise. About 14.000 family members were arrested during the battle for Mosul and detained in a center near Mosul, said the Iraqi ambassador to Belgium, Jawad al-Chlaihawi, interviewed by Belgian radio and television. RTBF in October. He had also expressly stated that " Some countries of origin do not want to receive them. France, for example, only accepts the repatriation of children for humanitarian reasons. But for adult women, they tell us: do what you want with them, according to Iraqi law. »
Arrested after the fall of Mosul
In Iraq, six families of jihadists have been reported to the French authorities, but only the three women currently detained in Baghdad have been identified and located. The women arrested in Iraq were arrested after the fall of Mosul in July (2). One of them, 28 years old and from the Lille region, left for the Iraqi-Syrian zone in 2015 with her husband, who was reportedly killed. She was arrested with her daughter, born on the spot. Melina, 27, from Seine-et-Marne and left in 2015, is detained with her child of a few months. Her first three children were repatriated in December to France. Under consular protection, the French consulate ensures that they are detained in satisfactory conditions and that they will benefit from a fair trial.
(AFP, supplemented by NGV)
(1) A position that is not theoretical. On January 22, a German woman was sentenced to death in Iraq for having joined the Islamic State, a first for a European woman. In December, a Swede of Iraqi origin was executed for "terrorism".
