Iraq Sentences French ISIS Fighters To Death
Three French citizens who joined ISIS and have been sentenced to death in Iraq, after being found guilty of joining the Islamic militant group.
The men, Kevin Gonot, Leonard Lopez and Salim Machou were three of 14 French nationals belonging to the Islamic State arrested in Syria and turned over to Iraq by Syrian Kurdish forces. According to the BBC, here is what is known about the three men - who will be the first French IS suspects to receive the death penalty.
Gonot, 32, is from south-eastern France. He is believed to have entered Syria through Turkey to join the al-Nusra Front, a branch of al-Qaeda, before pledging allegiance to IS.
He was arrested in Syria with his mother, his wife, and his half-brother in December 2017. A French court has also sentenced him in absentia to nine years in prison.
Machou, 41, belonged to an IS cell composed of European fighters that has carried out attacks in Iraq and Syria and planned others in Paris and Brussels, according to the Centre d'Analyse du Terrorisme (CAT), a French think tank.
Lopez, a 32-year-old from Paris, also travelled with his wife and two children to IS-held Mosul in northern Iraq before entering Syria, CAT quotes French investigators as saying. -BBC
Human rights organizations have been critical of trials of suspected Islamic State militants in Iraq, saying that they often rely on circumstantial evidence or forced confessions.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-05-26/iraq-sentences-french-isis-fighters-death