Wire reporting: (Reuters, via Al-Monitor)

An Iraqi criminal court in Baghdad on Tuesday sentenced seven French men convicted of Islamic State membership, the first verdicts among 47 French suspects transferred from detention in northeast Syria, The National reported².

The National said six of the men received 20-year prison terms and a seventh received 15 years². Al-Monitor, carrying a Reuters courtroom account, said six received life sentences and a seventh, aged 23, received 15 years^1,3.

Judge Mohammed Salman of the Karkh Criminal Court read the verdicts individually and said the charge can carry the death penalty, but he cited the defendants' youth in imposing prison terms instead, The National reported². Al-Monitor's Reuters dispatch likewise said the court chose imprisonment over death because the defendants were young¹.

The men were among 47 French Islamic State suspects moved last year from northeast Syria to Iraq under a relocation coordinated by U.S. forces and Iraqi authorities, according to the Reuters account carried by Al-Monitor¹. The National said the U.S. military transferred 5,704 suspected Islamic State detainees of 67 nationalities from Syria to Iraq between January and February².

The National said the men were also convicted of participating in terrorist acts that threatened public peace and endangered lives, and that the verdicts can be appealed within 30 days². Abbas al-Maliki, a lawyer for the defendants, said the group would appeal to the Court of Cassation, Al-Monitor reported¹.

Among those convicted was Mehdi Mohammed, 33, a French citizen of Algerian origin, The National reported². At an Oct. 5 hearing he said he had joined Islamic State after being lured on social media, telling the court, "It was never my intention to join the Islamic State"².

Islamic State seized large parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014 and was driven from its last territorial hold in 2019^1,2. European governments have often declined to take back citizens captured in Syria, leaving Iraq as a frequent venue for such trials².

Iraq opened the French nationals' trial last month, Al-Monitor reported¹. What remains unknown is how Iraqi courts will treat the remaining French defendants and whether Paris will comment on the sentences.