Iraq repatriates 15 former Saudis detainees

Iraqi authorities yesterday handed over 15 former Saudi detainees to Riyadh after they completed their sentences.

The Director of the Civil Status Directorate at the Iraqi ministry of the Interior, Riyad Al-Kaabi, told Al-Sabaah: “156 children of Daesh fighters from foreign mothers were deported based on a judicial decision.” He did not provide details about the countries to which the freed prisoners were repatriated.

Al-Kaabi pointed out that the deportation and repatriation was attended by “embassy representatives from each of the released prisoners’ countries,” adding that their repatriation was carried out after providing them with “temporary travel documents, travel tickets, as well as expenses for the coronavirus examination test.”

While there is no official count of the number of Saudi detainees in Iraqi prisons, dozens of them were reported to have illegally entered Iraq to join armed groups, mostly Al-Qaeda, to fight against US forces.

Saudi Arabia resumed diplomatic relations with Iraq in December 2015, after a 25-year halt since the  Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

Iraqi forces are said to have arrested thousands of Daesh militants, including hundreds of multinational foreigners, during the three-year war which erupted in 2014 until 2017.

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