Iraq sentenced over 600 foreigners for links with Islamic State in 2018

In 2018, Iraq handed down various sentences to more than 600 foreigners, including minors and women, for belonging to the Islamic State (IS) group, the country’s judiciary revealed on Monday.

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – In 2018, Iraq handed down various sentences to more than 600 foreigners, including minors and women, for belonging to the Islamic State (IS) group, the country’s judiciary revealed on Monday.

Iraq declared victory against the jihadist group in December 2017 after a three-year-long fight to liberate large swaths of its territory taken over by IS in 2014.

Since then, security forces in Iraq have arrested nearly 20,000 people suspected of having links to the terrorist group.

“616 men and women accused of belonging to Da’esh [IS] have been put on trial” in 2018 and sentenced under Iraq’s anti-terrorism law, judicial spokesperson Abdel-Sattar Bayraqdar said on Monday.

The breakdown consists of 466 women, 42 men, and 108 minors, Bayraqdar added.

He did not offer any details regarding their sentences.

Under Iraq’s anti-terrorism law, courts can issue verdicts, including death sentences, against anyone found guilty of belonging to the jihadist group, including non-combatants.

In April alone, Iraqi courts issued death sentences for more than 300 suspects linked to IS, and over 300 more were sentenced to life in prison, which is equivalent to 20 years in the country, sources told AFP.

Most of the women sentenced over links to the jihadist group were from neighboring Turkey and countries of the former Soviet Union.

Over the past years, women from different parts of the world flew to Iraq to join their husbands or would-be husbands fighting with IS.

Many of the detained foreigners have yet to be deported to their home countries.

Editing by Nadia Riva