Three French nationals were sentenced to life in prison in Iraq on Thursday for belonging to Islamic State, according to a court statement reported by Reuters. Their lawyers and French embassy representatives were present at the hearing in Baghdad. The names of the three were not published in the reports seen for this article.

The three were among 47 French Islamic State suspects transferred from detention facilities in north-east Syria to Iraq last year. On Tuesday, six French nationals from the same group were sentenced to life in prison and a seventh was sentenced to 15 years for belonging to the group, Reuters reported.

Why the transfers happened

Islamic State seized large parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014 before being driven from its self-declared caliphate by a US-led coalition and local forces in 2019. Many of its fighters were detained afterwards, but remnants of the organisation continue to operate.

The United States announced in January that it was completing the transfer of Islamic State detainees from Syria to Iraq, amid concerns about the security of their detention facilities after Kurdish-led forces lost control of parts of the region. The transfer set up the series of Iraqi trials now under way, in which French embassy representatives have been present at hearings.

No further detail about the individual cases, including the specific acts alleged against the three sentenced on Thursday, was published in the reports seen. This article therefore reports only the sentences, the group transfer and the hearing attendance confirmed by the court statement.

Sources: BusinessDay (Reuters), KRRO (Reuters)