PARIS
Three Frenchmen held in Iraq, forced to work for the Daesh group as children, are seeking repatriation on the grounds they were victims of war, their lawyers said Friday.
International humanitarian law prohibits the recruitment and use of children in hostilities.
The men — taken to Syria by their terrorist parents aged 11 or 12 then made to take part in propaganda videos, fight or join Daesh police — have filed legal documents in France claiming they were the victim of a war crime over their recruitment, a source with knowledge of the case told. The three detainees are part of 5,700 suspected Daesh “fighters” of 61 nationalities transferred from Syria to neighboring Iraq earlier this year. France is investigating them for alleged “terrorist” crimes while in Syria. But according to their lawyers arguing for their repatriation, the French judicial system should instead be considering them as “war victims.”
