Iraq has handed over
nearly 200 Turkish children, whose parents are being held over
membership in the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group and other militant
outfits, to Turkey to fly home.
Abdul Sattar al-Biraqdar, spokesman for Iraq's Supreme Judicial
Council, said the handover took place at Baghdad International Airport
on Wednesday, and representatives of the Iraqi judiciary, Iraqi Foreign
Ministry, Turkish embassy and the United Nations International
Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) were present until the children got
on a plane that would take them home.
“The Central Investigations Court, which is responsible for the
terrorism file and foreign suspects, has handed the Turkish side 188
children left behind by Daesh terrorists in Iraq,” Biraqdar added.
The high-ranking Iraqi judiciary official further noted that the
figure included a small percentage of adults, who were convicted of
illegally crossing the border and having their residencies expired.
Children can be held responsible for crimes in Iraq from the age of
nine.
Reuters reported in March that about 1,100 children of Daesh terrorists are caught in the Iraqi justice system.
Several hundred children are being prosecuted for offences ranging
from illegally entering Iraq to fighting alongside the Takfiri terror
group.
Some 185 children, aged nine to 18, have already been convicted and
received sentences from a few months to up to 15 years in juvenile
detention in Baghdad. Iraq condemns another Frenchman to death for Daesh membership
Separately, a Baghdad court sentenced a Frenchman to death for joining Daesh and involvement in acts of terror. Men walk out of Baghdad's Karkh main appeals court building
in the western sector of the Iraqi capital on May 29, 2019, where French
militants accused of belonging to the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group are
being tried. (Photo by AFP)
Yassin Sakkam was among a group of 12 French citizens, who were
captured by the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Syria and
handed over to Iraq in January.
“I admit to having sworn allegiance” to Daesh, Sakkam told the court, saying he was paid $70 (62 euros) a month.
He added that he regretted his decision to join the Takfiri terror group, and asked to be pardoned.
Sakkam, 29, left France in late 2014 to fight for Daesh, posting
online pictures of himself carrying arms and speaking to multiple media
outlets about the Takfiris.
He became one of the most notorious militants in France, which has
been seeking his arrest since 2016. SDF forces detained him in Syria in
2017.
Iraq has been trying hundreds of suspected Daesh members, many of
whom were detained as the outfit’s strongholds crumbled throughout Iraq.
This includes hundreds of foreigners.
Hundreds of European nationals traveled to the Middle East to
join Daesh after the terror group captured large swathes of territory in
Iraq and neighboring Syria in mid-2014.
Former Iraqi prime minister Haider al-Abadi declared the end of
military operations against Daesh in the country on December 9, 2017.
On July 10 that year, he had formally declared victory over Daesh in
Mosul, which served as the terrorists’ main urban stronghold in Iraq.
In the run-up to Mosul's liberation, Iraqi army soldiers and
volunteer Hashd al-Sha’abi fighters had made sweeping gains against
Daesh.
Iraqi forces took control of eastern Mosul in January 2017 after 100
days of fighting, and launched the battle in the west on February 19
last year. France slammed over 'inhumane treatment' of militants’ children
Meanwhile, French rights ombudsman has criticized Paris for the
“inhumane treatment” of children of Takfiri terrorists stranded in
Syria.
“The French state needs to adopt effective measures allowing the halt
to the inhumane and degrading treatment of children and their mothers
and put an end to the violations of the rights of the child,” France's
Human Rights Defender Jacques Toubon said in a statement on Wednesday.
Toubon added that France was flouting its obligations under the UN
Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which the Western European
country is a signatory.
According to the French Foreign Ministry, some 450 French citizens
linked to Daesh are either detained by Kurdish forces in northern Syria,
or being held in refugee camps.
But France is reluctant to bring back the militants or their families
in the wake of a string of terrorist attacks that have claimed the
lives of more than 250 people since 2015. Izadis sue Germany for failing to bring back Daesh militants
Also on Wednesday, an association affiliated to the Izadi minority
group sued two German ministers for failing to repatriate German
citizens who had fought for Daesh in Syria to stand trial at home.
The Germany-based federation of the Izadi women's council said, in
court documents seen by AFP, that US-backed SDF forces have offered to
hand over some 61 suspected German Daesh militants.
Berlin's “failure to accept the offer and to make possible the
urgently necessary prosecution constitutes the crime of obstruction of
punishment,” the Izazi women's association said.
“Legal cooperation is impossible since there are no state structures”
in the Kurdish-controlled areas in the northeastern part of Syria, an
unnamed German Justice Ministry spokesman said.
“We haven't received the criminal complaint, so we can't comment,” he pointed out.
The German official added there were 22 outstanding arrest warrants against German militants held in Syria.
The Paris-based NGO International Federation for Human Rights said in
a report on October 25 last year that foreign militants, including many
of European origins, were responsible for atrocities and acts of
brutality carried out by Daesh against Izadi Kurds.
Last August, an official at the Endowments and Religious Affairs
Ministry of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government said more
than 3,000 members of the Izadi minority group had remained unaccounted for ever since Daesh overran their hometowns in northern Iraq in 2014.
Khairi Bozarni said more than 2,500 Izadi Kurds had lost their lives
at the hands of Daesh, while another 6,000 – mostly women and children –
had been abducted.
Bozarni called on the international community as well as the central
government in Baghdad to determine the fate of missing Izadis as soon as
possible.
Back in August 2014, Daesh terrorists overran the Kurdish-populated
northern Iraqi town of Sinjar, killing, raping, and enslaving large
numbers of Izadi Kurds.
The region was recaptured in November 2015, during an operation by Kurdish Peshmerga forces and Izadi fighters.
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