3,000 Syrian prisoners to be repatriated

According to Kurdistan Press, Iraqi Justice Minister Khaled Shawani announced that the country plans to repatriate about 3,000 Syrian prisoners to Syria; these people are part of the nearly 5,700 prisoners who have been transferred from Syrian prisons to Iraq. Shawani emphasized that the amnesty does not include prisoners who committed crimes inside Iraq. He cited the reason for transferring these prisoners to Iraq as severe overcrowding in the country's prisons, saying that the prison population density has reached about 200 percent of their capacity.The Iraqi justice minister also clarified that all 5,700 prisoners transferred are not terrorists and that the results of the investigations conducted on the Syrian prisoners will be made available to the Iraqi judiciary. According to statistics from the Iraqi Supreme Judicial Council, 3,543 of the transferred prisoners are Syrian. Shawani also said that Iraq has also asked other countries to take back their citizens who are among those transferred from Syrian prisons to Iraq.