Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) An Iraqi court has sentenced Islamic State’s legislative judge, who was in charge of marriage contracts while the militant group was in control of Mosul city.

Nineveh Criminal Court sentenced an Islamic State militant to death,” Abdul Satar Bayraqdar, spokesperson for the High Judicial Council, said in a statement on Thursday. “The convict used to work as a judge in the marriage contracts court, within the so-called legislative courts of Islamic State in Mosul.”

On Wednesday, Bayraqdar said the same court issued verdicts against 815 convicts, with 212 death sentences and 150 life sentences over terrorism charges.

Estimates show that Iraq detains around 1,400 foreign wives and children in a facility, north of the country, over doubts of belonging to Islamic State.

Earlier this week, the Iraqi Justice Ministry has announced carrying out death sentences against 13 convicts, most of whom are involved in terrorism.

Six Turkish females were sentenced to death over affiliation to Islamic State, earlier in April.

In March, the Central Criminal Court in Baghdad has sentenced 13 Turkish women to death over the same charge. The same court sentenced number of women to life and death over belonging to Islamic State. Some of them were Azeri, Turkish and Iraqi.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared victory over the militant group, previously in December, however, observers warn that the group still poses a security threat with sleeper cells. </s> An Iraqi court has given the death penalty to a man who acted as a legislative judge in Mosul for the Islamic State (IS) when the group was in control of the city, said a judicial spokesman on Thursday.

The defendant, whose name was not specified, was reported to have been in charge of marriage contracts in Mosul and surrounding areas.

"The Nineveh Criminal Court sentenced an Islamic State militant to death,” said Abdul Sattar al-Birqdar, spokesperson for Iraq's Higher Judicial Council, in a statement. “The convict used to work as a judge in the marriage contracts court, within the so-called legislative courts of Islamic State in Mosul.”

One day before, al-Birqdar and another judicial official announced that, since the beginning of the year, over 300 suspects have been handed death sentences for crimes related to IS membership.

The cases, being heard in federal courts in Baghdad and Nineveh provinces, also resulted in several hundred lesser sentences, including life imprisonment.

The rise of executions in the country has led the UN mission in Iraq, the EU, and international human rights groups to criticize Iraq for a lack of transparency in its courts.

"These executions follow rushed trials of ISIS suspects which are riddled with due process violations, including convictions based solely on confessions which are sometimes extracted by torture," said HRW senior Iraq researcher Belkis Wille in a press release on Tuesday.

The death penalty in Iraq was suspended on June 10, 2003, but was reinstated the following year. Critics say that the country's flawed and confession-based criminal justice system in which torture is routinely used to extract confessions is incompatible with so final a sentence as capital punishment.

Iraq's Justice Ministry announced on Monday that it had executed 13 convicted prisoners, 11 of them over charges of terrorism.

Last year, Iraqi forces arrested tens of thousands of those accused of being Islamic State (IS) members and affiliates, most of whom await sentencing. </s> Iraq’s Central Criminal Court has issued death sentences to 16 Turkish women, a judiciary spokesman said. They were found guilty of joining Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) and aiding terrorists in their attacks.

The women were convicted to death by hanging after “it was proven they belong to the Daesh terrorist group and after they confessed to marrying Daesh elements or providing members of the group with logistical aid or helping them carry out terrorist attacks,” Judge Abdul-Sattar al-Birqdar, a spokesman of the court, told reporters, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State. The court’s decision can still be appealed, he said.

Thousands of women, including foreign nationals who joined the terrorist group, were detained by Iraqi forces as they liberated territories held by the extremists. In October last year, the Iraqi ambassador to Belgium, Jawad Al-Chlaihawi, put the total number of detained IS militant family members at 14,000. Many of them now face trial.

On Monday, the Iraqi court sentenced another Turkish woman to death over membership in the terrorist group while handing down life sentences to 10 more women of various nationalities. In late January, the death sentence was issued to a German woman of Moroccan descent who reportedly became the first foreign woman to be sentenced to death by an Iraqi court.

As many as 100 foreign fighters who travelled to Iraq to fight for Islamic State will stand trial in Iraq, Al-Chlaihawi said, adding that most of them are likely to be also sentenced to death. Back in 2015, an Iraqi court already sentenced an IS extremist, who came from Russia, to death.

All foreigners, including women who committed “crimes” against the people of Iraq “directly or through support” of terrorist groups will stand trial in accordance with Iraqi law, government spokesman Saad al-Hadithi said earlier this week. He added that foreign nationals proven to have committed no crimes on Iraqi soil would be sent back to their home countries, local media report.

On Monday, an Iraqi court ordered the release and deportation of a French woman who joined Islamic State. Melina Bougedir, 27, was detained last summer as Iraqi troops took over the northern city of Mosul from extremists. She was sentenced to seven months in prison for entering Iraq illegally, but was then immediately released as the court ruled she already served her time during her detention.

Last week, a German teenage ‘Islamic State bride’ known as Linda Wenzel was convicted to six years in prison for her affiliation with the terrorist group. </s> A court in Baghdad sentenced 19 Russian women to life in prison for joining Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters in the country.

A Central Criminal Court ruling determined on Sunday the Russian women were guilty of "joining and supporting" ISIL, AFP news agency reported.

The women, many accompanied by their children, addressed the court through a translator - a Russian -language professor at Baghdad University hired by the Russian embassy.

A Russian diplomat at the hearing said the families of the women will be contacted and "informed of the verdict".

Another six women from Azerbaijan and four from Tajikistan were also given life sentences.

Most of the women on trial claimed to have been misled into making the trip to Iraq.

"I did not know we were in Iraq … I went with my husband and my children to Turkey to live there and then I suddenly discovered I was actually in Iraq," one of the accused said on Sunday.

ISIL fighters surprised Iraqi forces with a lightning-quick offensive in 2014 and captured about one-third of the country, including the second-largest city Mosul, among others.

Since declaring victory over ISIL in late 2017, Iraqi authorities have arrested more than 560 women and 600 children identified as either as members of the group or relatives of fighters.

Earlier this month, an Iraqi court sentenced French national Djamila Boutoutaou to life imprisonment for joining the armed group.

Boutoutaou told authorities at the time she travelled with her husband thinking they would go on a holiday, but soon realised once in Turkey that her "husband was a jihadist".

Her husband was later killed in a military operation near Mosul along with their son. Boutoutaou subsequently surrendered to Kurdish Peshmerga forces in Iraq.

Experts estimate Iraq has detained more than 20,000 people over suspected ties to the group and has sentenced more than 300 people to death so far. Twelve ISIL widows were given the death penalty in February.

Iraq's anti-terrorism laws empower courts to convict people who are believed to have helped ISIL, even if they were not directly involved in fighting. </s> Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) Iraqi judiciary sentenced on Tuesday seven foreign women of various nationalities to death and life in jail over affiliation with Islamic State militants, news reports said.

The Supreme Judicial Council said in a statement that the Central Criminal Court sentenced three Azerbaijanis and one Kergyz to death, while issuing a life sentence for two Russians and a French national.

Earlier news reports quoted AFP identifying the French nationa as 29-year-old Jamila Botoato.

In February, Iraq sentenced a French woman to seven months in jail for entering the country illegally. In the same month, 16 Turkish women were sentenced to death for providing logistical support to the militants.

Iraq is holding hundreds of foreign wives and children of Islamic State militants who were captured as Iraqi forces gradually seized back territories held by the extremist group since 2014. The government declared victory over IS last December.

Authorities say they are coordinating with other countries to extradite those held who are not convicted of terrorism. </s> Baghdad: Iraq sentenced a French woman to life in prison for belonging to the Islamic State group, the latest in a series of court rulings since the country's defeat of Islamic State.

Djamila Boutoutaou, a 29-year-old of Algerian origin, told a Baghdad court that she had left France with her husband, a rapper.

She said she thought they were going on holiday but "when I arrived in Turkey I discovered that my husband was a jihadist".

She said she was forced by her husband to join Islamic State and live in the "caliphate" that the jihadists proclaimed in 2014 straddling Syria and Iraq.

Her husband was killed near the former jihadist stronghold of Mosul, northern Iraq, and her son died in bombardment, Boutoutaou said.

Two Russian women, both holding children in their arms, were also sentenced to life in prison at the same hearing.

Iraq declared victory in December against Islamic State, which at one point controlled a third of the country. The Iraqi anti-terrorism law empowers courts to convict people who are believed to have helped Islamic State even if they are not accused of violence.

In January, an Iraqi court condemned a German woman to death after finding her guilty of belonging to Islamic State.

A court the following month sentenced another French woman to seven months in jail for entering Iraq illegally but ordered her release on time already served.

Several dozen Turkish women have been sentenced to death under Iraqi anti-terrorism laws. </s> An Iraqi court sentenced 16 Turkish woman to death by hanging for joining Islamic State, a judiciary spokesman said on Sunday.



The central criminal court issued the sentences "after it was proven they belong to the Daesh terrorist group and after they confessed to marrying Daesh elements or providing members of the group with logistical aid or helping them carry out terrorist attacks," said Judge Abdul-Sattar al-Birqdar, referring to the militant group using an Arabic acronym.



All the verdicts can be appealed, he told Reuters. </s> An Iraqi court has sentenced 15 Turkish women to death after finding them guilty of joining the Islamic State (IS) militant group.

The criminal court on February 25 also sentenced another Turkish woman to life for joining the group.

Judge Abdul-Sattar al-Birqdar said the court issued the sentences "after it was proven they belong to the [IS] terrorist group and after they confessed to marrying [IS] elements or providing members of the group with logistical aid or helping them carry out terrorist attacks."

Iraq has detained at least 560 women and 600 children identified as militants or relatives of IS fighters.

In January, a court sentenced a German woman to death on charges of providing logistical support to IS militants, and a Turkish woman was, earlier in February, also handed the death penalty.

The Iraqi government declared military victory over IS militants in December, after expelling the group from all major urban centers they had held in northern and western Iraq since 2014.

Based on reporting by AFP and Reuters </s> FILE PHOTO: Members of the Iraqi Army's 9th Armoured Division are photographed with an Islamic State flag, claimed after fighting with Islamic State militants in western Mosul Thomson Reuters BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi courts have sentenced 212 people to death in Mosul and surrounding areas, most of them for complicity with Islamic State, since the area was retaken by Iraqi forces in July and August 2017, a judiciary spokesman said on Wednesday.

Mosul was home to two million people before being overrun in 2014 by Islamic State which proclaimed a "caliphate" stretching into neighboring Syria.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared full victory over the group last December after Iraqi forces drove its last remnants from the country.

Since then, Human rights groups have accused Iraqi and other regional forces of inconsistencies in the judicial process and flawed trials leading to unfair convictions.

Iraq's Supreme Judicial Council said on Wednesday that criminal courts falling under the Nineveh Federal Court of Appeals, whose jurisdiction includes Mosul, had so far ruled on a total of 815 cases since the area was recaptured from Islamic State.

"The statistics coming from the criminal courts show that 815 people have gone on trial and that 212 were sentenced to death. A further 150 were sentenced to life in prison," said judiciary spokesman Judge Abdul-Sattar al-Birqdar.

It was not immediately clear how many, if any, of the death sentences had been already carried out.

"The vast majority of these rulings were against elements of the Islamic State terrorist organization who were proven to have committed crimes, and came after public trials conducted in accordance with the law. Defendants were afforded their rights," Birqdar said.

Another 341 people were jailed for various terms and 112 were acquitted, he said.

New York-based Human Rights Watch released an 80-page report in December accusing Iraqi federal and Kurdish regional judiciaries of violating the rights of Islamic State suspects with flawed trials, arbitrary detentions under harsh conditions and broad prosecutions.
An Iraqi judge hands a death sentence to an ISIL member who acted as a judge deciding on marriages in Mosul.