US moves 7,000 ISIS suspects from Syria to Iraq amid security and due process concerns

Erbil, Iraq The US military is in the process of transferring nearly 7,000 ISIS suspects to prisons and jails in the northeast. in Syria in detention centers across the border into Iraq. The operation comes amid security concerns, following a mass escape from at least one prison in Syria, but it also raises concerns about the fate of detainees.

A security source in Iraq told CBS News that since Thursday, about 2,000 prisoners have been transferred to the country.

Iraq has vowed to try the prisoners, and many could face terrorism charges in the opaque justice system, which just seven years ago saw ISIS suspects, including European nationals, convicted and sentenced to death.

In late January, Syria’s Ministry of Defense announced a 15-day extension of the ceasefire that has largely ended clashes between government forces and Kurdish forces in the country’s northeast. That clash has created chaos in prisons holding ISIS prisoners in a region controlled by the US-allied Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

The chaos included January 20 mass escape in one place.

The Defense Department said the extension of the ceasefire was intended to allow the US-led military coalition to end the transfer of ISIS suspects to Iraq.

Since the beginning of the US-led war against ISIS in 2014, the SDF played a key role in defeating the terrorist group and forcing it to abandon its Islamic Caliphate in 2019.

As a result of the initial offensive and ongoing operations, thousands of ISIS suspects have been arrested 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 the new Syrian government, which succeeded the dictatorship, also backed by the US, led to conflicts that reduced security in prisons holding ISIS prisoners – many of whom were hard-line fighters.

Uncertainty about security in detention centers has not only alarmed the SDF and Damascus leaders, but neighboring countries and the US, and Washington has agreed to move about 7,000 ISIS suspects to safer detention facilities in Iraq.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed the plan, saying the prisoners “will be in Iraq for a while,” and urged the countries where the prisoners are held to return their people.

In Iraq, officials wary of mass exodus moved quickly to tighten border security with Syria while providing safe havens to hold transferred prisoners.

“It’s better for them to be arrested and protected in Iraq than to worry about escaping and being released in Syria,” another Iraqi security source, who was not authorized to speak on the matter, told CBS News.

But while Rubio said ISIS suspects would only be detained temporarily in Iraq, the government in Baghdad has gone further, saying it is ready to put them on trial.

Iraq says it can give ISIS suspects “fair and decisive trials.” Can it?

The chief legal officer of Iraq, the President of the Supreme Council of Justice, Judge Dr. Faiq Zidan, speaking on television on January 23 that his country is fully prepared to handle the cases of ISIS suspects, foreign and domestic.

“Although other countries refuse to accept their people involved in acts of terrorism, the Iraqi judiciary confirms that it is fully prepared to try the terrorists imprisoned in the camps inside Syria, in accordance with the laws of the country and international obligations, to ensure a fair and decisive trial, to achieve justice for the victims of terrorism, and to maintain security in Iraq and abroad.

But Sarah Sanbar, a researcher at New York-based Human Rights Watch, questioned Iraq’s ability to process so many cases properly, telling CBS News that the last time such a large number of people were brought before the country’s courts, “the system was completely overwhelmed.”

After the defeat of ISIS in Iraq at the end of 2017, the country put thousands of ISIS suspects on trial. According to the United Nations in Iraq, between January 2018 and October 2019, the Iraqi judiciary processed more than 20,000 cases related to terrorism.

Iraqi officials have not confirmed how many people convicted of terrorism offenses have been sentenced to death during that time, but Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International say around 8,000 people have been sentenced to death in the country, including non-Iraqi citizens.

Several media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, reported in 2019 that seven French people were among hundreds of people sentenced to death. A CBS news team attended one of the exercises in Baghdad.

“It was a mock trial,” Sanbar told CBS News. “Confessing to crimes that were found to be torture, people being tortured in institutions, cases that lasted 10 minutes without a lawyer, when they were sentenced to death, because of an unknown informant and there was no concrete evidence.”

In response to questions sent by CBS News via email, an official at the National Center of Justice and International Judicial Collaboration in Iraq dismissed Sanbar’s allegations, saying that “the Iraqi court absolutely rejects torture” and noted that “coerced confessions are punishable under Iraqi law.”

“Terrorism cases in Iraq are conducted in accordance with current laws and under a constitutional framework that guarantees the right to a fair trial, the right of the accused to defend himself, and the validity of appeal decisions,” said an official at the center, adding that all these measures “were overseen by special judges working under unusual circumstances imposed by the size and nature of these cases.”

Sanbar said Iraq’s justice system has “come a long way” since the 2019 trials, as the country itself has continued to stabilize, “but as mentioned, many of those core problems still persist.”

Asking Iraq and the US to say “who’s there”

“We don’t know who is there,” Sanbar told CBS News about the prisoners being transported to Iraq by the US “And part of what we can ask the authorities to do in Iraq, and the coalition, is to be very clear about who they are transferring, inform the families, give them access to legal representation, so first and foremost, we know who is there.”

When they visited the main prison where ISIS suspects are held in Hasaka, northeastern Syria, in 2019, CBS News found that most of them were Iraqis or Syrians, but there were also Europeans, Asians, Turks and citizens of other Arab countries. There was also one American man, but CBS News later learned that he had been sent home.

So far, no third country has commented on the extradition of any foreign nationals to Iraq or the possibility of them being tried in the country. That did not surprise Sanibar.

“We have seen these countries whose citizens left to join ISIS completely wash their hands of any kind of responsibility. They have allowed them to suffer there for the last 10 years,” said Sanbar. “We were hoping that they would now take them home, and we are asking them to do so.

The Iraqi National Center of Justice and International Judicial Collaboration told CBS News that it was in contact with several countries on the issue, although it did not identify them.

When CBS News spoke with Iraq’s chief justice Zaidan in 2019 about criticism of previous convictions and death sentences, including seven French nationals, his stance was clear: Other countries should hold their own, or let Iraq do it the Iraqi way.

“My message to foreign governments,” said Zaidan: “Please respect the Iraqi court and Iraqi law. If you want our court to try all the war fighters, you must respect our decision. You must respect our law. If you do not accept what we are doing in our court, please take your prisoner, take your suspect to your country.”