Turkey to deport nine Iraqi nationals arrested for IS links

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) – Following the arrest of 21 Iraqi nationals in Turkey who were suspected to have ties with the Islamic State (IS), Ankara has decided to deport nine of them, a security source said on Tuesday.

The suspected IS members were arrested last week as part of an anti-terror operation launched by the Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office in Samsun, state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

The unnamed security source told AA that the nine Iraqi nationals were released from the police station and referred to a Samsun court which ordered their deportation.

It is unclear what the fate of the suspects will be once they arrive in Iraq, but Baghdad has taken a hard approach to IS members and sympathizers, handing down severe sentences, including life in prison and the death penalty.

A court in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad on Monday, meanwhile, handed sentences to seven Turkish women for their membership in the extremist group.

Six of the women were given the death penalty while the seventh was issued a life sentence, all for their role in aiding members of IS, AFP reported. 

Officials in Turkey have not issued a comment regarding the sentencing of the Turkish nationals.

Addressing the court, the women revealed they had entered the country to join their husbands who were fighting for IS.

According to a judicial source, the seven Turkish women had turned themselves in to Kurdish Peshmerga forces after they escaped Tal Afar (west of Mosul), one of the extremist group’s last strongholds to fall to Iraqi security forces last year.

Baghdad is currently conducting trials for hundreds of foreign women and children who have been detained by Iraqi troops during military operations to liberate the country from IS over the past year.

According to Iraq’s counterterrorism law, aiding or membership to the extremist group carries the penalty of life in prison or death.