First group of Turkish nationals accused of being members of ISIS return from Iraq

According to Kurdistan Press, the Turkish website T24 announced that Turkey has begun the process of returning the first group of its nationals who are being held in Iraq on charges of being members of ISIS; Among the 148 Turkish nationals on the list of Iraqi authorities are people whose names have been mentioned in cases related to ISIS attacks inside Turkey.

According to the website, 148 Turkish citizens are on the list of people handed over to Iraqi authorities. Some of these people have also been mentioned in cases related to ISIS attacks inside Türkiye.These individuals were transferred to Iraq from prisons and detention centers in northern and eastern Syria at the beginning of this year, and their cases are being examined within the framework of the Iraqi judicial process.

In this regard, the Iraqi Supreme Judicial Council announced earlier this month that the interrogation phase of 5,704 alleged ISIS members who were transferred to Iraq from northern and eastern Syria had been completed.

According to the council, the individuals in these cases have 67 different nationalities, including 16 Arab nationalities, 19 nationalities of European Union member states, and 32 other foreign nationalities.

Among these individuals, 474 are Iraqi nationals and 3,497 are Syrian nationals. The significant number of foreign nationals among those transferred to Iraq demonstrates the international dimensions of the ISIS members’ case and the judicial and security challenges arising from handling their cases.The repatriation of Turkish nationals from Iraq comes at a time when the fate of thousands of individuals accused of being members of ISIS, who were previously held in prisons and camps in northern and eastern Syria, remains a major security and judicial issue in the region.