(Top left to bottom right) Salim Machou, Mustapha Merzoughi, Brahim Nejara, Kevin Gonot, Yassine Sakkam and Leonard Lopez (Picture: AFP)

A Baghdad court has sentenced two more Frenchmen to be sentenced to death for joining Isis.

Brahim Nejara and Karam El Harchaoui, both in their 30s, have now raised the number of French jihadists on death row in Iraq to six.

They were among 12 French citizens transferred to Iraqi authorities in January by a US-backed force fighting the jihadist group in Syria.

The court’s most recent ruling came despite the fact France has reiterated its opposition to capital punishment, after a series of similar rulings were made this week against French citizens handed over to Baghdad.


Four other Frenchmen – Kevin Gonot, Leonard Lopez, Salim Machou and Mustapha Merzoughi – were given death sentences.



They face trial in the coming days under a law allowing capital punishment for anyone joining a ‘terrorist group’ – even those who did not take up arms.

Relatives wait outside Nineveh Criminal Court in Iraq (Picture: AP)

French national Yassine Sakkam (Picture: AFP)

But the trials have been criticised by human rights groups, which say they often rely on evidence obtained through torture.

A group representing the families of French jihadists have asked the French Government to ‘do everything possible to stop this fatal chain of death sentences’ and to try them ‘on our soil’.

Iraq has this year taken custody of thousands of jihadists – including foreigners – who were captured in Syria by US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) during the battle to destroy the IS ‘caliphate’.

Nejara, 33, was involved in IS’s foreign fighter operations, according to the French Terrorism Analysis Center.

He allegedly helped foreign fighters join IS in Syria and persuaded one of his brothers to carry out a terror attack in France.

French national Mustapha Merzoughi (Picture: AFP)

Samira, a Belgian national married to Karam El-Harchaoui, walks with their son at Camp Roj in north Syria (Picture: AP)

French national Kevin Gonot (Picture: AFP)

Nejara was found to be linked to suicide bomber Foued Mohamed-Aggad, who was at the Bataclan theatre during the 2015 Paris attacks.

In a Baghdad court, he told the judge ‘he left from France to Syria in his car in 2014’, adding: ‘My wife, my daughter and my brother-in-law were with me’.

2014 was the year IS declared its ‘caliphate’ and called on supporters around the world to pledge their allegiance.

Nejara insisted he had been forced to appear in an IS propaganda video threatening France in the wake of the attacks in Paris.

Harchaoui, 32, left for Syria in 2014 from Belgium and according to Belgian newpaper HLN, his younger brother and their Belgian wives were also IS members.

But he claimed he was innocent, and told the judge: ‘I didn’t enter Iraq and I didn’t participate in any combat either in Syria or Iraq’.

The pair have 30 days to appeal the death row decision.

Salim Machou (Picture: AFP)

A courtroom at Baghdad’s Karkh main appeals court (Picture: AFP)

On Tuesday Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said he had reminded Iraqi President Barham Saleh that ‘we are opposed to the death penalty’.

Human rights groups have denounced the risk of ‘torture’ and unfair trials in Iraq – ranked the 12th most corrupt country in the world.

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



Its courts have condemned many to life in prison and others to death, although no foreign IS members have yet been executed.

The country remains in the top five ‘executioner’ nations in the world, an Amnesty International report said in April.

Trials are set Wednesday for 29-year-old Yassin Sakkam, one of the most prominent French members of IS, and Mohammed Berriri, 24, the youngest of the 12 French jihadists held in Iraq.

Fodil Tahar Aouidate, who appeared in court Monday, will return for trial on June 2 to give time for a medical examination ordered after he claimed to have been beaten by interrogators.

Vianney Ouraghi, Bilel Kabaoui and Mourad Delhomme, who also appeared in court Monday, are set to return on June 3.

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