US transfers 7,000 ISIS suspects from Syria to Iraq amid security and due process concerns

Erbil, Iraq— The US military is in the process of transferring nearly 7,000 ISIS suspects from prisons and jails in the Northeast. Syria to detention centers across the border with Iraq. The operation comes amid security concerns following a mass breakout from at least one prison in Syria, but also raises concerns about the fate of those detained.

An Iraqi security source told News themezone that as of Thursday, nearly 2,000 detainees had been transferred to the country.

Iraq has promised to put prisoners on trial, and many could face terrorism charges in an opaque justice system that, just seven years ago, suspected ISIS militants, including European citizens, were convicted and sentenced to death.

In late January, Syria’s Defense Ministry announced a 15-day extension of a ceasefire that largely ended fighting between government troops and Kurdish forces in the country’s northeast. Those clashes had caused chaos in prisons holding ISIS detainees in the region long controlled by the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), allied with the United States.

The chaos included an attack on January 20. massive leak from a facility.

The Defense Ministry said the ceasefire extension was intended to allow the US-led military coalition to complete the transfer of ISIS suspects to Iraq.

Since the start of the US-led war against ISIS in 2014, the SDF played a decisive role in defeating the terrorist group and forcing it to abandon its self-proclaimed Islamic caliphate in 2019. ISIS, although no longer holding significant territory, still poses a threat, and the SDF has continued to work alongside coalition forces to conduct joint operations aimed at preventing its resurgence.

As a result of the initial offensive and ongoing operations, thousands of ISIS suspects were detained in prisons and detention centers guarded by SDF and coalition troops in northeastern Syria.

But a deep lack of trust between the SDF and Syria’s new post-dictatorial government, which is also backed by the United States, led to clashes that weakened security at prisons holding ISIS detainees, many of them hardened militants.

Uncertainty over security at the detention centers alarmed not only the SDF and leaders in Damascus, but also neighboring countries and the United States, and Washington agreed to relocate the estimated 7,000 ISIS suspects to more secure detention centers in Iraq.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed the plan, saying the prisoners “would be temporarily in Iraq” and urging the detainees’ home countries to repatriate their nationals.

In Iraq, officials, fearful of new mass escapes, moved quickly to tighten security along the border with Syria while offering secure facilities to hold transferred detainees.

“It is better to have them imprisoned and secured in Iraq than to worry about their escapes and releases in Syria,” an Iraqi security source, who was not authorized to speak on the matter, told News themezone.

But although Rubio said the ISIS suspects would only be held temporarily in Iraq, the government in Baghdad has gone further and said it is ready to try them.

Iraq says it can offer ISIS suspects “fair and decisive trials.” Can?

Iraq’s top legal official, Supreme Judicial Council Chairman Judge Dr. Faiq Zidan, said in a televised speech on January 23 that his country was fully prepared to handle cases of ISIS suspects, both domestic and foreign.

“While some countries refuse to receive their nationals involved in terrorist crimes, the Iraqi judiciary confirms its full willingness to try terrorists detained in camps within Syrian territory, in accordance with national laws and international obligations, ensuring fair and decisive trials, achieving justice for victims of terrorism and preserving security in Iraq and other countries,” Zidan said.

But Sarah Sanbar, a researcher at the New York-based Human Rights Watch, questioned Iraq’s ability to conduct so many trials fairly, telling News themezone that the last time such a large number of people appeared in court in the country, “the system was completely overwhelmed.”

Following the defeat of ISIS in Iraq in late 2017, the country put thousands of ISIS suspects on trial. According to the United Nations mission in Iraq, between January 2018 and October 2019, the Iraqi judiciary prosecuted more than 20,000 terrorism-related cases.

Iraqi officials have not confirmed how many people convicted of terrorism crimes were sentenced to death during that period, but Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have said that about 8,000 people are on death row in the country, including non-Iraqi citizens.

Several media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, reported in 2019 that seven French citizens were among hundreds of people sentenced to death. A News themezone crew attended one of the trials in Baghdad.

“They were totally false trials,” Sanbar told News themezone. “Confessions obtained under torture, people tortured in detention centers, trials that lasted 10 minutes without the presence of a lawyer, where they were sentenced to death, based on an anonymous informant and without corroborating evidence.”

In response to questions emailed by News themezone, an official at Iraq’s National Center for Justice and International Judicial Collaboration rejected Sanbar’s allegations, saying that “the Iraqi judiciary categorically rejects torture” and noted that “obtaining confessions through coercion is a punishable offense under Iraqi law.”

“Terrorism trials in Iraq are carried out in accordance with existing laws and within a constitutional framework that guarantees the right to a fair trial, the right of the accused to a defense and the eligibility of sentences for legal appeal,” the center official said, adding that all such proceedings were “supervised by specialized judges working under extraordinary circumstances imposed by the scale and nature of these crimes.”

Sanbar said Iraq’s justice system “has come a long way” since the 2019 trials as the country itself has continued to stabilize, “but that being said, many of those core systemic problems still remain.”

Ask Iraq and the United States to say “who is there?”

“We don’t know who is there,” Sanbar told News themezone of the detainees being transferred to Iraq by the United States. “And part of what we would ask of the authorities in Iraq, and the coalition, is to be very clear about who they are transferring, to inform the families, to give them access to legal representation, so that, first and foremost, we know who is there.”

On a visit to a huge prison housing ISIS suspects in Hasaka, northeastern Syria, in 2019, News themezone found that most of them were Iraqis or Syrians, but there were also many Europeans, Asians, Turks and citizens of other Arab countries. There was also an American man, but News themezone later learned he had been repatriated.

So far, no third country has commented on the transfer of foreign citizens to Iraq or the possibility of them being tried in the country. This has not come as a surprise to Sanbar.

“We have seen these countries whose citizens left the group to join ISIS completely wash their hands of any kind of responsibility. They have been left to languish there for the last 10 years,” Sanbar said. “We hope that you will now take them home and we ask that you do so.”

The Iraqi National Center for Justice and International Judicial Collaboration told News themezone it was in communication with several countries about the matter, although it did not identify them.

When News themezone spoke to Iraqi Justice Chief Zaidan in 2019 about criticism of past convictions and death sentences, including those of seven French citizens, his stance was clear: Other countries should handle it themselves or let Iraq do it its way.

“My message to foreign governments,” Zaidan said: “Please respect the Iraqi court and Iraqi law. If you want our court to try all the combatants, you must respect our decision. You must respect our law. If you do not accept what we are doing in our court, please take your detainee, take your suspect to your country and have a trial in your country.”