An Iraqi court on Saturday (June 2) sentenced a French woman to life in jail for membership of ISIS terrorist group.
(AhlulBayt News Agency) - An Iraqi court on Saturday (June 2) sentenced a French woman to life in jail for membership of ISIS terrorist group.
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 her re-trial under Iraq’s anti-terrorist law.
The 27-year-old was found guilty of belonging to ISIS.
“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 ISIS, she said.
On Thursday, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told French news channel LCI that Boughedir was a “Daesh (ISIS) terrorist who fought against Iraq” and said she should be tried in Iraq.
On Saturday, one of her lawyers, who travelled to Baghdad for the trial, William Bourdon, said that Boughedir’s family and her defence team want her to return to France and face a court there.
Boughedir was arrested in the summer of 2017 in Mosul.
Her husband is believed to have been killed during a vast operation by Iraqi forces to seize the country’s second city back from militant control.
In April, an Iraqi court sentenced another French women, Djamila Boutoutaou, to life in prison for belonging to ISIS, despite her pleas that she too had been tricked by her husband.
