Erbil, Iraq – The US military is in the process of transferring nearly 7,000 ISIS suspects from prisons and jails in Northeast Syria to cross-border detention facilities in Iraq. The operation comes amid concerns over security following a mass escape from at least one prison in Syria, but it is also raising concerns over the fate of detainees.
As of Thursday, an Iraqi security source informed CBS News that the country had received about 2,000 detainees.
Iraq has vowed to prosecute the prisoners, and many could face terrorism charges in an opaque justice system in which, just seven years ago, alleged ISIS terrorists, including European citizens, were convicted and sentenced to death.
In late January, Syria’s Defence Ministry announced a 15-day extension of the ceasefire, largely ending clashes between government troops and Kurdish forces in the country’s northeast. Those clashes led to chaos around prisons holding ISIS detainees in an area long controlled by the US-allied Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
This devastating mass migration from a facility extends to January 20.
The Defence Ministry said the ceasefire extension was intended to enable the US-led military coalition to transfer ISIS suspects to Iraq.
From the beginning 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-declared Islamic caliphate in 2019. ISIS, although no longer capturing significant territory, remains a threat, and the SDF continues to work with coalition forces to conduct joint operations aimed at preventing its re-emergence.
As a result of the initial offensive and ongoing operations, thousands of ISIS suspects were detained in prisons and detention centers guarded by the SDF and coalition forces in northeastern Syria.
But a deep lack of trust between the SDF and Syria’s new, post-dictatorship government, also backed by the US, has led to clashes that have weakened security at prisons holding ISIS detainees – many of them hardened terrorists.
Uncertainty over security at detention facilities worried not only the SDF and leaders in Damascus but also neighbouring countries and the US, and Washington agreed to transfer approximately 7,000 ISIS suspects to more secure detention facilities in Iraq.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed the plan, saying the prisoners would “remain temporarily in Iraq” and urged the detainees’ home countries to deport their citizens.
In Iraq, authorities wary of further mass migration moved quickly to tighten security on the border with Syria while providing secure facilities to hold transferred detainees.
An Iraqi security source, who was not authorised to speak on the matter, told CBS News, “It is better to have them captured and protected in Iraq than to worry about their escape and release in Syria.”
But while Rubio said ISIS suspects would only be held temporarily in Iraq, the government in Baghdad has gone further, saying it is prepared to prosecute them.
Iraq says it can offer ISIS suspects a “fair and decisive trial”. Can it?
Iraq’s top legal official, Judge Dr Faiq Zeidan, chairman of the Supreme Judicial Council, said in a televised address on January 23 that his country is fully prepared to handle the cases of foreign and domestic ISIS suspects.
Zidan said, “While some countries refuse to accept their citizens involved in terrorist crimes, the Iraqi judiciary reaffirms its full readiness to prosecute terrorists detained in camps within Syrian territory, in accordance with national laws and international obligations, to ensure fair and conclusive trials, to achieve justice for victims of terrorism, and to maintain security in Iraq and other countries.”
But Sarah Sambar, a researcher with the New York-based Human Rights Watch organization, questioned Iraq’s ability to conduct so many trials fairly, telling CBS News that the last time the country put a large number of people before the courts, “the system was completely overwhelmed.”
Following the defeat of ISIS in Iraq in late 2017, the country prosecuted thousands of ISIS suspects. According to the United Nations Mission in Iraq, between January 2018 and October 2019, the Iraqi judiciary processed more than 20,000 terrorism-related cases.
Iraqi authorities 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 nearly 8,000 people are on death row in the country, including non-Iraqi citizens.
Several news outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, reported that in 2019 seven French citizens were among hundreds of people sentenced to death. The CBS News team attended a trial in Baghdad.
“They were completely sham trials,” Sambar told CBS News. “Confessions obtained under torture, people being tortured in detention centers; trials lasting 10 minutes without any lawyer present, where they were sentenced to death based on anonymous informants and no evidence.”
Responding to questions sent via email by CBS News, an official with Iraq’s National Center of Justice and International Judicial Cooperation rejected Sambar’s allegations, saying that “the Iraqi judiciary unequivocally rejects torture” and that “obtaining confessions through coercion is a punishable offence under Iraqi law.”
“Terrorism trials in Iraq are conducted in accordance with current laws and within a constitutional framework that guarantees the right to a fair trial, the defendant’s right to defence, and the eligibility of verdicts for legal appeal,” the center official said.
Sanbar stated that the justice system in Iraq has made significant progress since the 2019 trials, coinciding with the country’s apparent stabilisation. However, he acknowledged the persistence of many major systemic issues.
He called on both Iraq and the US to answer the question, “Who is there?”
“We don’t know who is there,” Sambar told CBS News about the U.S. taking detainees to Iraq.
During a 2019 visit to a massive prison holding ISIS suspects in Hasakah, northeastern Syria, CBS News found that most of them were Iraqis or Syrians, but many were also Europeans, Asians, Turks, and citizens of other Arab countries. There was also an American man there, but CBS News later learned he was deported.
So far, no third countries have commented on the possibility of transferring any foreign nationals to Iraq or prosecuting them in the country. This is no surprise for Sambar.
“We have seen countries whose citizens left to join ISIS completely abdicating any responsibility. They let them languish there for the last 10 years,” Sambar said. “We hope they will now take them home, and we ask them to do so.”
The Iraqi National Center for Justice and International Judicial Cooperation told CBS News it is in contact with several countries regarding the case, though it did not identify them.
When? Speaking to CBS News, Iraq’s justice chief, Zeidan, said his stance regarding previous convictions and criticism over the death penalty, including that of seven French citizens in 2019, was clear: other countries should either handle it themselves or let Iraq do it Iraq’s way.
“My message to foreign governments,” Zeidan said, “is that they should please respect the Iraqi court and Iraqi law.” If you want our court to prosecute all fighters, you must respect our verdict. You must respect our law. If you do not accept our court’s decisions, please take your captive and your suspect back to your country to prosecute them there.
