'I was deceived': French ISIS recruit on trial in Iraq says he regrets joining group

A French man admitted on Monday in a court in Iraq to joining ISIS after claiming that he was lured on social media into helping Muslims in Syria during its gruelling civil war. He pleaded for mercy.

Mehdi Ismail Mohammed, 33, is one of 11 French citizens of Algerian and Tunisian origin brought before a judge in Baghdad. They are accused of joining ISIS during its rule over much of Iraq and Syria from mid-2014 until its defeat in Iraq in 2017 and Syria in 2019.

They are among 47 French fighters handed over to Iraq last year by the Syrian Democratic Forces militia, which had held thousands of suspected ISIS members and their families in overcrowded prisons and camps since the extremists lost their last bastion in Baghouz.

The trials, which opened in Baghdad last month, expose Europe's unresolved dilemma over its ISIS fighters eight years almost a decade on. With no international tribunal in place, and European countries reluctant to take them back, Iraq has in effect become the courtroom for Europe's extremists.

Monday was Mohammed's second appearance before the court. The judge had appointed a defence lawyer for him when he was unable to secure a French counsel.

He told the court his story in a frail voice.

As a student in France in 2013, he was troubled by the war in Syria, he said. After meeting a man known as Abu Mohammed Al Faransi on social media, he left France for Algeria, where he stayed for six months. Then in late 2013 he flew to Turkey and crossed into Syria with the help of smugglers.

I deeply regret it

Mehdi Ismail Mohammed says

“He convinced me to come to Syria and to join the revolution to support them because they are Muslims,” Mohammed told the judge, with his hands clasped to his back and his head shaved.

“It was never my intention to join the Islamic State. I was convinced that we as Muslims should help the Syrians."

He claimed he initially lived with his recruiter for three months when he knew he belonged to ISIS. “At first I refused to join ISIS because I did not come to fight,” Mohammed said.

Eventually, he said, he agreed to join in a non-combat role: giving religious teaching to civilians and children and leading prayers in a mosque in Manbij, every day except Friday, while working as an accountant handing out salaries and aid to imams.

In 2016, as the US-led coalition tightened its offensive, he moved to Raqqa, the group's capital, where he worked in the Diwan Al Zakat – the department that collected Islamic taxes from farmers and herders, which was a key revenue stream for the putative state.

By 2018, with the caliphate collapsing, Mohammed said life became impossible.

“Life became very difficult and I tried to leave the organisation,” he said. He said he paid a smuggler, took his two wives and four children and tried to flee to Turkey, planning to surrender to the French or Algerian embassy. Instead, he was arrested by the SDF.

Inside ISIS he had used the names Abu Jawad Al Faransi, then Abu Musab Al Fransi.

“The work I did was civilian. When I came to Syria I had no relationship with the party and I did not want to interfere in it, and when I discovered the group's violations and its heinous acts … I deeply regret it,” he said.

Mohammed's court-appointed lawyer, Abbas Al Kinani, asked for acquittal or leniency, arguing his client confessed, was deceived online and had committed no proven crimes on Iraqi soil.

Judge Mohammed Salman set October 27 as the date for the verdict.

The trials for the other 10 defendants were adjourned until later this month. The judge gave them more time to arrange French lawyers or accept one appointed by the court.

All 11 defendants face the same charge, according to Mr Salman – “belonging to the terrorist organisation ISIS and participating in terrorist acts threatening public peace and security and endangering people's lives".

Iraq has tried thousands of its own citizens for ISIS membership under its sweeping anti-terrorism law, which carries the death penalty for belonging to a terrorist group.

Foreigners have received the same treatment, a policy that has drawn criticism from human rights groups, but which Baghdad defends as a matter of sovereignty and deterrence.

Iraq is also preparing to put on trial 5,704 ISIS prisoners who were transferred from Syria early this year. They comprise 67 nationalities, according to the Supreme Judiciary Cuncncil . There are 16 Arab, 19 European and 32 other nationalities, the council said. The breakdown includes 474 Iraqis and 3,497 Syrians.