PARIS: An Iraqi court on Tuesday sentenced two high-profile French members of Daesh to death, bringing the total number of French former militants condemned to death this week to six.
France said it would do all it can to spare the group from execution in Iraq. Although it has made no effort to bring back the captured fighters, France is outspoken against the death penalty globally.
The sentencings in Iraq come amid a controversy about the legal treatment of thousands of foreign fighters who had joined Daesh at the height of its power in Syria and Iraq when the militant group declared its self-styled caliphate.
The men sentenced to death Tuesday were identified as Karam Salam Mohammed El-Harchaoui and Brahim Ali Mansour Nejara. They are among a group of 12 French citizens who were detained by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces in neighboring Syria and handed over to Iraq in January. The Kurdish-led group spearheaded the fight against Daesh in Syria and has handed over to Iraq hundreds of suspected Daesh members in recent months.
Nejara, 32, helped run one of the networks that sent Europeans to join Daesh and appeared in a video a week after the November 2015 attacks in Paris. The video was titled "Paris has collapsed" and shows a fictitious destruction of the Eiffel Tower, according to Jean-Charles Brisard of the Center of the Analysis of Terrorism.
Nejara is originally from a suburb of the French city of Lyon called Meyzieu, long known to be a training ground for militants, even before the appearance of Daesh. He is believed to have encouraged one of his brothers back home to carry out an attack in France, possibly on the stadium there. Two brothers were arrested in France.
The video he appeared in, praising the Paris attacks that killed 130 people and wounded more than 400, was played in court Tuesday.
Nejara, speaking before the judge, said that he was forced to make the video because the group was looking for someone who speaks French. He said he was threatened with prison when he requested to appear masked in the video, before they agreed to his request.
The other militant, El-Harchaoui, 33, lived in Belgium before he left for Syria in 2014. He was wounded in one of the battles he fought for Daesh in Syria. His second wife told The Associated Press he joined Daesh in Syria in 2014, was sent to Iraq to fight, escaped and traveled back to Syria's Shaddadeh, then to Raqqa where he was wounded in an airstrike in 2016. He was jailed for fleeing, then released. The two then met and married in October 2015, after which he was arrested again.
"I know he will not have a fair trial," Samira told the AP in an interview in March at camp Roj in northern Syria, where thousands of foreign women and children are languishing.
El-Harchaoui showed off his wound to the court on Tuesday, pulling off the top of his yellow prison uniform to reveal a hole in his right shoulder where he was wounded from a shell that hit a nearby house.
Three other French Daesh fighters had already been sentenced to death on Sunday, and a fourth on Monday. Those convicted can appeal their sentences within a month.
Human rights groups have criticized Iraq's handling of Daesh trials, accusing authorities of relying on circumstantial evidence and often extracting confessions under torture.
France's foreign minister said earlier Tuesday that his government is working to spare the group of condemned Frenchmen from execution after Iraq sentenced them to death.
Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian also reiterated France's position but said the Daesh militants should be tried where they committed their crimes.
"We are multiplying efforts to avoid the death penalty for these ... French people," he said on France-Inter radio. He didn't elaborate, but said he spoke to Iraq's president about the case.
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Iraq sentences 2 more French Daesh members to death as France seeks to prevent execution
Iraq sentences 2 more French Daesh members to death as France seeks to prevent execution
- France has made no effort to bring back captured French Daesh fighters
- Controversy surrounds the legal treatment of thousands of foreign fighters who joined Daesh
US military boards sanctioned oil tanker in Indian Ocean
- Tanker tracking website says Aquila II departed the Venezuelan coast after US forces captured then-President Nicolás Maduro
- Pentagon says it 'hunted' the vessel all the way from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean
WASHINGTON: US military forces boarded a sanctioned oil tanker in the Indian Ocean after tracking the ship from the Caribbean Sea, the Pentagon said Monday.
The Pentagon’s statement on social media did not say whether the ship was connected to Venezuela, which faces US sanctions on its oil and relies on a shadow fleet of falsely flagged tankers to smuggle crude into global supply chains.
However, the Aquila II was one of at least 16 tankers that departed the Venezuelan coast last month after US forces captured then-President Nicolás Maduro, said Samir Madani, co-founder of TankerTrackers.com. He said his organization used satellite imagery and surface-level photos to document the ship’s movements.
According to data transmitted from the ship on Monday, it is not currently laden with a cargo of crude oil.
The Aquila II is a Panamanian-flagged tanker under US sanctions related to the shipment of illicit Russian oil. Owned by a company with a listed address in Hong Kong, ship tracking data shows it has spent much of the last year with its radio transponder turned off, a practice known as “running dark” commonly employed by smugglers to hide their location.
US Southern Command, which oversees Latin America, said in an email that it had nothing to add to the Pentagon’s post on X. The post said the military “conducted a right-of-visit, maritime interdiction” on the ship.
“The Aquila II was operating in defiance of President Trump’s established quarantine of sanctioned vessels in the Caribbean,” the Pentagon said. “It ran, and we followed.”
The US did not say it had seized the ship, which the US has done previously with at least seven other sanctioned oil tankers linked to Venezuela.
A Navy official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military operations, would not say what forces were used in the operation but confirmed the destroyers USS Pinckney and USS John Finn as well as the mobile base ship USS Miguel Keith were operating in the Indian Ocean.
In videos the Pentagon posted to social media, uniformed forces can be seen boarding a Navy helicopter that takes off from a ship that matches the profile of the Miguel Keith. Video and photos of the tanker shot from inside a helicopter also show a Navy destroyer sailing alongside the ship.
Since the US ouster of Maduro in a surprise nighttime raid on Jan. 3, the Trump administration has set out to control the production, refining and global distribution of Venezuela’s petroleum products. Officials in President Donald Trump’s Republican administration have made it clear they see seizing the tankers as a way to generate cash as they seek to rebuild Venezuela’s battered oil industry and restore its economy.
Trump also has been trying to restrict the flow of oil to Cuba, which faces strict economic sanctions by the US and relies heavily on oil shipments from allies like Mexico, Russia and Venezuela.
Since the Venezuela operation, Trump has said no more Venezuelan oil will go to Cuba and that the Cuban government is ready to fall. Trump also recently signed an executive order that would impose a tariff on any goods from countries that sell or provide oil to Cuba, primarily pressuring Mexico because it has acted as an oil lifeline for Cuba.
The Pentagon’s statement on social media did not say whether the ship was connected to Venezuela, which faces US sanctions on its oil and relies on a shadow fleet of falsely flagged tankers to smuggle crude into global supply chains.
However, the Aquila II was one of at least 16 tankers that departed the Venezuelan coast last month after US forces captured then-President Nicolás Maduro, said Samir Madani, co-founder of TankerTrackers.com. He said his organization used satellite imagery and surface-level photos to document the ship’s movements.
According to data transmitted from the ship on Monday, it is not currently laden with a cargo of crude oil.
The Aquila II is a Panamanian-flagged tanker under US sanctions related to the shipment of illicit Russian oil. Owned by a company with a listed address in Hong Kong, ship tracking data shows it has spent much of the last year with its radio transponder turned off, a practice known as “running dark” commonly employed by smugglers to hide their location.
US Southern Command, which oversees Latin America, said in an email that it had nothing to add to the Pentagon’s post on X. The post said the military “conducted a right-of-visit, maritime interdiction” on the ship.
“The Aquila II was operating in defiance of President Trump’s established quarantine of sanctioned vessels in the Caribbean,” the Pentagon said. “It ran, and we followed.”
The US did not say it had seized the ship, which the US has done previously with at least seven other sanctioned oil tankers linked to Venezuela.
A Navy official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military operations, would not say what forces were used in the operation but confirmed the destroyers USS Pinckney and USS John Finn as well as the mobile base ship USS Miguel Keith were operating in the Indian Ocean.
In videos the Pentagon posted to social media, uniformed forces can be seen boarding a Navy helicopter that takes off from a ship that matches the profile of the Miguel Keith. Video and photos of the tanker shot from inside a helicopter also show a Navy destroyer sailing alongside the ship.
Since the US ouster of Maduro in a surprise nighttime raid on Jan. 3, the Trump administration has set out to control the production, refining and global distribution of Venezuela’s petroleum products. Officials in President Donald Trump’s Republican administration have made it clear they see seizing the tankers as a way to generate cash as they seek to rebuild Venezuela’s battered oil industry and restore its economy.
Trump also has been trying to restrict the flow of oil to Cuba, which faces strict economic sanctions by the US and relies heavily on oil shipments from allies like Mexico, Russia and Venezuela.
Since the Venezuela operation, Trump has said no more Venezuelan oil will go to Cuba and that the Cuban government is ready to fall. Trump also recently signed an executive order that would impose a tariff on any goods from countries that sell or provide oil to Cuba, primarily pressuring Mexico because it has acted as an oil lifeline for Cuba.
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