Dor years, two French women and twelve men, prosecuted in France for criminal conspiracy of a terrorist nature, have been imprisoned in Iraq. All were sentenced between 2017 and 2019 to the death penalty (commuted to life imprisonment) or to twenty years of imprisonment, after unfair sham trials, in disregard of the most basic rights of the defense.
The children of the two French women were imprisoned with their mothers, before being repatriated to France without them. Since then, they have never heard their mothers' voices again, nor received any news from them. The conditions of detention of these fourteen French nationals amount to inhuman and degrading treatment.
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The men survive in cells of less than 100 square meters where more than 130 prisoners are crammed together, they lack water, food, and do not benefit from any care or treatment. Women have no right to anything: no pen, no paper, no book, no television. They too are crammed into dilapidated cells, without access to the most basic care, and are regularly humiliated and mistreated.
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Since their departure and arrival in Syria or Iraq, for at least ten years, French anti-terrorist investigating judges have been investigating their cases. All of them have issued international arrest warrants against them, in the context of criminal judicial information pending due to their absence and their incarceration in Iraq. Trials must be held in France.
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These men and women were born, grew up and were radicalized in France, before joining a terrorist organization which itself instigated attacks perpetrated in France. It is therefore on French soil that they must answer criminally for their responsibility. The Iraqi authorities have clearly expressed the wish to see these detainees transferred to their country and have even taken steps to this end. However, they are met with silence from the French authorities.
Also read the editorial of “Le Monde” | French jihadists must be judged in France
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We, victims of the attacks, lawyers for these French people detained in Iraq, lawyers for victims of terrorism, viscerally attached to the rule of law and the need for trials to be held in France, officially ask the French authorities to transfer these men and these women on French territory so that they can answer for their actions.
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