French lawyers challenge Iraq trials over ISIS cases
Shafaq News- Paris
French lawyers representing nationals accused of ISIS membership in Iraq said on Thursday they were “deeply concerned” after Iraqi authorities denied them permission to attend proceedings involving their clients, warning that the detainees could face death sentences in trials that “fall short of basic fair-trial standards.”
The statement was signed by Marie Dosé, Matthieu Bagard, Pauline Gamba-Martini, Victoire d’Humières and Baptiste Vachon.
According to the defense team, several French nationals they represent were transferred from northeastern Syria to Iraq and are expected to appear before courts in Baghdad within days. The lawyers described the transfers as “unlawful.”
They also alleged that some detainees had been subjected to inhumane and degrading treatment, including torture, and said they had previously raised those concerns with French authorities.
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The defense team added that it has been denied access to case files and cannot speak privately with clients outside the presence of Iraqi authorities. It also criticized court-appointed Iraqi lawyers, saying some had only brief access to the detainees.
Some of the French nationals were taken to Syria by their parents as children and are now adults, the statement noted. Requests submitted this summer for permission to return to Iraq were rejected at the last minute, while renewed requests to meet the detainees were not approved before the expected trials.
French authorities, according to the statement, informed the defense team that Iraq does not recognize French lawyers as having standing to represent the detainees in Iraqi proceedings.
The lawyers pointed to the cases of 11 French nationals transferred from Syria to Iraq in January 2019 and later sentenced to death for ISIS membership.
They argued that those proceedings failed to meet minimum fair-trial standards under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the right to a fair hearing.
The defense team urged the French government to repatriate the detainees, saying this was necessary to prevent their exposure to the death penalty and what it described as a serious denial of justice.
ISIS seized large parts of northern and western Iraq in 2014, carrying out mass killings, sexual enslavement and forced displacement. UN investigators concluded that the group committed genocide against the Yazidis, as well as war crimes and crimes against humanity against other Iraqi communities. Among its deadliest attacks was the 2014 Camp Speicher massacre, in which about 1,700 predominantly Shiite cadets were executed.
Read more: 12 years after Camp Speicher massacre and hundreds remain unidentified
