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| TOPSHOT – A picture taken on February 19, 2018, shows French Jihadist Melina Bougedir carriyng hers soon arriving in court in the Iraqi capital Baghdad. Melina Bougedir, 27, was arrested last summer in former Islamic State group stronghold Mosul with her four children, three of whom have been repatriated to France. / AFP / STRINGER |
A French woman have been sentenced to Prison for 20years after she was found guilty of terrorism by an Iraqi court, on Sunday, 3rd June.
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The mother of four, Melina Boughedir, was first sentenced in February 2018 to seven months in prison for “illegal” entry into the country, and was set to be deported back to France but then another court ordered the re-trial of the 27-year-old French citizen under Iraq’s anti-terror law and on Sunday she was found guilty of belonging to IS, therefore handed a life sentence — which in Iraq is equivalent to 20 years.
With her last strength, Boughedir said she is innocent and that her husband duped her and threatened to leave with the children unless she followed him to Iraq.
“I am innocent.” “My husband duped me and then threatened to leave with the children” she says.
“I am opposed to the ideology of the Islamic group and condemn the actions of my husband,” she added.
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She also told the court on Sunday that the man she had been married to for five years had disappeared one day, walking out and saying he was going out “to look for water”.
Since then, she said, she had received no information about his fate or his whereabouts.
Her Iraqi lawyer, Nasureddin Madlul Abd, urged the court to acquit Boughedir, describing her spouse as a “jailkeeper not a husband” who had “forced” her to join him in Iraq.
Her French defence team — William Bourdon, Martin Pradel and Vincent Brengarth — said they were “relieved” she had been spared the death penalty, but vowed to appeal the verdict.
Boughedir is the second French citizen sentenced to life in prison by an Iraqi court for belonging to IS, after Djamila Boutoutaou, 29, in April. Boutoutaou also said she had been tricked by her husband.
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