BAGHDAD: An Iraqi court on Sunday jailed a French woman for 20 years for belonging to the IS group, as her lawyers accused authorities in Paris of “interference” to prevent her returning to France. Melina Boughedir, a mother of four, was sentenced last February to seven months in prison for “illegal” entry into the country, and was set to be deported back to France. But another court ordered the re-trial of the 27-year-old French citizen under Iraq’s anti-terror law. On Sunday she was found guilty of belonging to IS and handed a life sentence — which in Iraq is equivalent to 20 years.
“I am innocent,” Boughedir told the judge in French.
“My husband duped me and then threatened to leave with the children” unless she followed him to Iraq, where he planned on joining IS, she said.
“I am opposed to the ideology of the group and condemn the actions of my husband,” she added.
Her Iraqi lawyer, Nasureddin Madlul Abd, urged the court to acquit Boughedir, describing her spouse as a “jailkeeper not a husband” who had “forced” her to join him in Iraq.
Her French defence team — William Bourdon, Martin Pradel and Vincent Brengarth — said they were “relieved” she had been spared the death penalty, but vowed to appeal the verdict.
Boughedir, who wore a black dress and a black headscarf, arrived in the courtroom carrying her youngest daughter in her arms. Her three other children are now back in France.
Hers is the latest in a series of verdicts doled out to foreigners who flocked to join IS in its self-declared “caliphate” after the militant group seized the northern third of Iraq and swathes of Syria in 2014.
On May 22, an Iraqi court sentenced Belgian militant Tarik Jadaoun, also known as Abu Hamza al Beljiki, to death by hanging — although he pleaded not guilty to a range of terror charges.
Jadaoun had earned the moniker “the new Abaaoud”, after his compatriot Abdelhamid Abaaoud, one of the organisers of November 2015 attacks in Paris.
Even before she was sentenced, Boughedir’s case sparked anger from her defence team, who had accused French authorities of interfering in the case.
On Thursday, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told French news channel LCI that Boughedir was a “Daesh (IS) terrorist who fought against Iraq” and said she should be tried on Iraqi soil.
Her French lawyers sent a letter of protest to Le Drian, seen by AFP, in which they denounced “pressure on the Iraqi judicial system” and “unacceptable interference”.
Bourdon on Sunday condemned the verdict, saying it had been influenced by “extra-judicial reasons”.
During the hearing, which lasted about one hour, the judge asked Boughedir — who was arrested in the summer of 2017 in Mosul — to explain why and under what circumstances she had arrived in Iraq.
He then declared that “the proof that has been gathered is enough to condemn the criminal” to a life sentence.
Bourdon said Le Drian wanted his client to be tried in Iraq to “ensure that she won’t be heading back home to France any time soon”, as part of efforts to prevent the return of militants.
Boughedir’s family and her defence team want her to face a court in France, Bourdon said. — AFP
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