Foreign ministry says it is opposed to the death penalty ‘at all times and in all places’

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

An Iraqi court has condemned a fourth French citizen to death for joining Islamic State, despite France reiterating its opposition to capital punishment.

Mustapha Merzoughi, 37, was sentenced to death by hanging, according to an AFP journalist at the court.

In recent months Iraq has taken custody of thousands of jihadists including foreigners captured in neighbouring Syria by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) during the battle to destroy the Isis “caliphate”.

Among them are 12 French citizens, three of whom – Kevin Gonot, Leonard Lopez and Salim Machou – were handed death sentences on Sunday by a Baghdad court, the first for French jihadists. They have 30 days to appeal.

The trials have been criticised by rights groups, which say they often rely on evidence obtained through torture. They have also raised the question of whether suspected Isis jihadists should be tried in the region or repatriated, in the face of strong public opposition at home.

France has long insisted that its adult citizens captured in Iraq or Syria must face trial locally, refusing to repatriate them despite the risk of capital punishment.

Paris on Monday reiterated its opposition to the death penalty, saying it would take “the necessary steps” to prevent Iraq from carrying out capital punishment against its citizens. “France is opposed in principle to the death penalty at all times and in all places,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

Before handing down the sentence on Monday, the Iraqi court judge told Merzoughi: “The evidence and the confession show that you joined the Islamic State group, that you worked in its military branch.”

Wearing a yellow prison uniform, Merzoughi said he was “not guilty of crimes and killings” but simply of travelling to Syria. “I ask for forgiveness from the people of Iraq, Syria, France and the families of the victims,” he said.

Merzoughi told investigators he had served in the French army from 2000 to 2010, including a tour in Afghanistan in 2009. In France, he lived in the south-western city of Toulouse, the hometown of the jihadist brothers Fabien and Jean-Michel Clain who claimed the deadly 2015 attacks in Paris and were killed fighting in Syria.

France repatriates five orphaned children of jihadists from Syria Read more

Merzoughi, a French citizen with Tunisian roots, passed through Belgium and Morocco, then on to northern Syria where he allegedly underwent “religious and military training in Aleppo”.

He allegedly told investigators previously that he pledged allegiance to a masked Isis leader in Mosul, claiming that many senior jihadists worried about being “recognised or identified by foreign fighters they feared were spies”. But in court on Monday he said he never pledged allegiance to the jihadist group.

Leonard Lopez, one of three sentenced on Sunday, is a 32-year-old Parisian convert to Islam long known to French authorities.

His French lawyer, Nabil Boudi, denounced “summary justice” and said he and his Iraqi counterpart would appeal the decision.

The Iraqi judiciary said earlier in May that it had tried and sentenced more than 500 suspected foreign members of Isis since the start of 2018.