France refuses to repatriate dozens of ISIS fighters held in Iraqi custody

A legal dispute persists over the fate of approximately sixty French nationals who joined the Islamic State and were transferred from Kurdish-administered camps in northeast Syria to the Al-Karkh central prison in Iraq. French authorities maintain that Iraq, as a sovereign nation, has jurisdiction to try them for crimes committed on its territory and therefore refuse to repatriate them. Of the first group moved in 2018, eleven were sentenced the following year to death, a penalty later reduced to life imprisonment.

In mid-2025 and early 2026, a second wave of roughly fifty men—three of whom were underage when they carried out the acts—were also sent to Iraq and are now awaiting trial. Those who voluntarily returned to France or were captured on French soil are automatically sent to the special assize court in Paris.