Baghdad (AFP) – In Baghdad, French detainees accused of belonging to the Islamic State (IS) group appear in turn before the Karkh court. Dressed in orange, their beards shaved, they express "regrets" without erasing the abuses imposed by the jihadists for years in Syria.

Published on: 02/11/2026 - 07:47

Transferred to Iraq last year, 47 French people have been tried there since September for their membership in IS which, although predominantly Iraqi-Syrian, included numerous foreign fighters and committed massacres and atrocities when it controlled vast territories between 2014 and 2017.

In its first verdicts delivered in recent days, the court sentenced nine men to life imprisonment, which is equivalent to 20 years under Iraqi law.

A 24-year-old defendant, taken to Syria by his mother more than ten years ago, was given a 15-year sentence.

When the sentence was announced, the young man - whose identity AFP was withholding for procedural reasons - said in Arabic, his voice trembling: "I went to Syria, but it was my mother who chose for me. What is my fault?"

“The organization deceived me”

Kamel Ben Mbarek, 42, regrets having been "deceived by the organization even though he was no longer very young" and should not have fallen into their trap.

Initially driven by "anger at the abuses of the Syrian regime" of Bashar al-Assad in 2011, this former driver of the IS Islamic police in Raqa says he adhered to an ideology "which only retained certain passages of the Koran", a manipulation understood according to him "only once in prison".

At another hearing, a defendant with a blind eye and an amputated right hand leans against the woodwork, claiming to have been injured fighting for ISIS.

Less than half of the 47 French people have appeared so far, out of some 1,500 who have joined the organization in Iraq and Syria over the years.

France, which had one of the strongest European contingents of jihadists, is reluctant to repatriate its nationals in the face of often hostile public opinion, while the country has suffered several attacks on its soil.

In the group, there is Adrien Guihal, a veteran of the French jihad who notably claimed responsibility in the name of IS for the attack in Nice, in the south of France, which left 86 dead on July 14, 2016.

“I lost everything”

“I regret everything I did. I lost everything,” also assures Adel Bouaoun, 28, accused of having participated in IS operations in Aleppo and Palmyra.

He talks about the difficult conditions in prisons administered by Kurdish forces in Syria, dead prisoners and "physical and psychological torture".

Defeated in Iraq in 2017, then in Syria in 2019 by the international coalition led by Washington, the group left in Syria thousands of people suspected of belonging to jihadist groups, as well as their families, in jails and camps managed by the Kurds, spearhead of the fight against ISIS.

At the start of 2026, the new Syrian authorities took over management, and the American army subsequently transferred more than 5,700 detainees of some 60 nationalities, including at least five French, to already overcrowded Iraqi penitentiary establishments.

NGOs denounce the speed of this anti-terrorist justice system whose verdicts are often based, according to them, on extorted confessions.

“This whole procedure is pressure. You have recorded statements that are not mine,” defended Lakhdar Sebouai, 34, saying he had simply worked in a telephone store.

“Inhuman treatment”

Some defendants seemed moved when they saw their loved ones from France in the room. The judge allowed them to speak with them for a few minutes apart, after many years of separation.

Their families preferred to remain silent in front of the press.

French lawyers were banned from accessing the territory, according to Matthieu Bagard and Marie Dosé, who defend around thirty French people, after their positions denouncing the "inhumane treatment" inflicted on detainees and demanding a trial in France.

In their absence, two Iraqi lawyers were appointed. They refused to speak to AFP.

“Even if his sentence is different, he was tortured like an adult and tried like an adult,” Me Bagard told AFP about the youngest of the accused.

In court, Thomas Barnouin, 45, whose verdict is expected on November 18, said he went to Syria at the start of the conflict, convinced that he had a religious duty to defend Muslims.

But “the organization applied the law of the jungle, not that of God,” he said. “We did not know that she also wanted to commit terrorist attacks in our country, in France. (...) I disavow all her crimes.”

© 2026 AFP

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