Iraq will prosecute 13 French citizens captured while fighting for the ISIS terrorist group in Syria, announced Iraqi President Barham Salih on Monday.
Speaking at a news conference in Paris with French President Emmanuel Macron, he added that the fighters, who were turned over to Iraq after being seized by Syrian Kurdish forces, "will be judged according to Iraqi law.”
"Those who have engaged in crimes against Iraq and Iraqi installations and personnel, we are definitely seeking them and seeking their trial in Iraqi courts," he said.
An Iraqi government source in Baghdad had told AFP earlier Monday that 14 French fighters had been brought to Iraq by the US-backed forces trying to dislodge ISIS extremists from their last bastion in Syria.
France has long maintained that any of its nationals caught in Syria or Iraq should be tried locally, a stance which critics say could leave them facing the death penalty, which is outlawed in France.
Macron reiterated this position Monday, saying that "it is up to the authorities of these countries to decide, sovereignty, if they will be tried there."
"These people are entitled to benefit from our consular protection, and our diplomatic service will be mobilized," he added.
Macron also said he would visit Iraq in the coming months, after France announced in January that it would provide one billion euros ($1.1 billion) in reconstruction funds for the war-ravaged country.
Two years after declaring victory against ISIS, the terrorist group appears to be regrouping to wage an insurgency in Iraq.
US and Iraqi officials warned last week that extremists facing defeat in Syria are slipping across the border into Iraq, where they are destabilizing the country's fragile security.
Hundreds — likely more than 1,000 — militants have crossed the open, desert border in the past six months, defying a massive operation by US, Kurdish, and allied forces to stamp out the remnants of the group in eastern Syria.
In recent months, the group has carried out kidnappings, assassinations and roadside ambushes in Iraq aimed at intimidating the local population and financing the group's extortion rackets.
