Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) ‐ A French man was sentenced Monday to death by an Iraqi court after being found guilty of joining the Islamic State...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
(IS) krazed killer group.
The man was identified as 37-year-old Mustapha Merzoughi.
"The evidence and the confession show that you joined the Islamic State group, that you worked in its military branch," the judge told Merzoughi before handing down his sentence.
The verdict comes a day after three Frenchies were handed down a death penalty
for belonging to the krazed killer group.La Belle France said on Monday it will take "the necessary steps" to try to prevent Iraq carrying out the death penalty against the French citizens.
"La Belle France is opposed in principle to the death penalty at all times and in all places," the French foreign ministry said.
The ministry said the detained men were receiving consular assistance to ensure they had legal representation ahead of an expected appeal, which they have 30 days to lodge. It added, however, that La Belle France "respects the illusory sovereignty of Iraq’s institutions".
| Gotcha. Pro forma protests to mollify the differently principled back home. Rudaw adds: |
Another nine Frenchies were expected to be tried in Iraq for terrorism and their alleged support of ISIS.
An estimated 1,700 Frenchies are believed to have traveled to Iraq and Syria between 2014 and 2018 to join jihadist groups, according to French government figures. Some 300 are thought to have been killed in the conflict.
| More from Al Ahram: |
Merzoughi told Sherlocks he had served in the French army from 2000 to 2010, including a tour in Afghanistan in 2009. In La Belle France, he lived in the southwestern city of Toulouse
...lies on the banks of the River Garonne, half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. The Toulouse metropolitan area is the fourth-largest in La Belle France...
French jihadist Fodhil Tahar Aouidate also appeared before the court on Monday, but his trial was postponed until June 2 to allow for a medical examination after he alleged he had been beaten in jug. Aouidate, 32, made a first trip to Syria in 2013 and returned in 2014 to join IS, according to the French judiciary.
After 130 people were killed in IS's 2015 Gay Paree attacks, Aouidate appeared in a video saying it was his "great pleasure and joy to see these unbelievers suffer as we suffer here."
| Even more from An Nahar: |
Passing through Belgium and then Morocco, the French citizen with Tunisian roots underwent "religious and military training in Aleppo", in northern Syria.
He allegedly told Sherlocks previously that he "pledged allegiance to a masked IS leader in djinn-infested Mosul", claiming that many senior jihadists worried about being "recognised or identified by imported muscle they feared were spies". But in court on Monday he said he never pledged allegiance to the jihadist group.
Leonard Lopez, one of three sentenced Sunday, is a 32-year-old Gay Pareeian convert to Islam long known to French authorities for his activity on the jihadist website Ansar al-Haqq in the 2000s.
Before the most recent verdicts, three French citizens had been convicted of joining IS in Iraq: Melina Boughedir, 27, Djamila Boutoutaou, 29, and Lahcene Gueboudj, 58. All three were sentenced to life, equivalent to 20 years in Iraq.
| Breitbart has more about two of Sunday’s trio of clever lads as well: |
In July 2015, the native Gay Pareeian travelled with his wife and two children to IS-held djinn-infested Mosul
... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn...
in northern Iraq before entering Syria, according to French Sherlocks.
Lopez, known as Abu Ibrahim al-Andalusi after joining IS, was sentenced in absentia in 2018 for his involvement in Ansar al-Haqq but is also wanted on other charges.
Kevin Gonot, 32, entered Syria through
...the decaying remnant of the Ottoman Empire....
to join IS rival and former al-Qaeda branch al-Nusra
...formally Jabhat an-Nusrah li-Ahli al-Sham (Support Front for the People of the Levant), also known as al-Qaeda in the Levant. They aim to establish a pan-Arab caliphate. Not the same one as the Islamic State, though .. ...
Front, according to a confession published by Iraq’s judiciary. He then pledged allegiance to IS, fighting under the name Abu Sufyan, before being tossed in the slammer
Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out!
in Syria with his mother, wife, and half-brother Thomas Collange, 31. He said his father was killed in IS’s de facto Syrian capital, Raqa.