An Iraqi court has sentenced a German teenager to six years in jail for membership of the Islamic State group and illegal entry into the country, a judicial source said Monday.

The source told AFP that the girl, aged 17, was on Sunday handed a five-year term for belonging to IS and one year in prison for crossing illegally into Iraq.

On January 21, a German woman of Moroccan origin was sentenced to death by hanging on charges of providing "logistical support and helping the terrorist group to carry out crimes".

The two Germans are among hundreds of foreign suspected jihadists held by Iraqi authorities, who in December announced the defeat of IS after a gruelling three-year battle.

According to media reports in Germany, the condemned woman, named Lamia K., had left Mannheim in August 2014. She was arrested by Iraqi forces during the final stages last July of the battle for the northern city of Mosul.

At least two other German women are being held in prison in Iraq, including the teenager Linda W., who had disappeared from home in the summer of 2016, shortly after converting to Islam.

The girl from Pulsnitz in Saxony, in a meeting with German journalists in Baghdad last summer, said she wanted to return to her family and regretted her actions.

In a separate case, a suspected French jihadist, who had been sentenced to seven months in prison for illegal entry, was on Monday ordered released and deported on the basis of time served.

On Sunday, a Turkish woman was sentenced to death and 11 other foreign widows who fighter husbands had been killed to life in jail for belonging to IS.

Iraq to deport suspected French jihadist who served sentence
Baghdad (AFP) Feb 19, 2018 - An Iraqi court ordered the release and deportation of a suspected French jihadist sentenced Monday to seven months in prison for entering the country illegally, saying she had already served her time.

Melina Boughedir, 27, was arrested last summer in former Islamic State group stronghold Mosul with her four children, three of whom have been repatriated to France.

Wearing a black dress and purple headscarf, she entered the courtroom holding her other child, a boy with blond hair.

Speaking in Arabic, she said that she had been a housewife in Mosul.

"I entered Syria with my French passport but Daesh (IS) took it from me. I stayed in Syria for four days and then came to Mosul with my husband and four children".

She said that her French husband Maximilien, whom she said had been a cook for IS, was killed as Iraqi forces battled to oust the jihadist group from Mosul, which was recaptured last July.

Asked her if she regretted what she did, she replied: "Yes".

Iraq in December declared victory against IS after a years-long battle to retake large swathes of territory the extremists had seized in 2014.

An Iraqi court last month condemned a German woman to death by hanging after finding her guilty of belonging to IS, the first such sentence in a case involving a European woman.

And a German teenager was sentenced to six years in prison on Sunday for membership in IS, a judicial source said, adding that she was 17 years old.

- Wanted in France -

After last month's death sentence, lawyers for Boughedir and another French woman awaiting trial in Iraq for allegedly joining IS wrote to French President Emmanuel Macron warning that they could face the same penalty.

But Boughedir also faces an arrest warrant in France, where she is wanted for alleged "association with criminals and terrorists", a judicial source in Paris said.

She is expected to be detained and interrogated by anti-terrorist judges if she returns to France, a source close to the case said.

Several dozen French citizens suspected of links to the jihadist group are believed to be in detention camps or prisons in Syria and Iraq.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said in Baghdad last week that suspected jihadists should be tried in the countries where they committed their "crimes", while reiterating France's opposition to the death penalty.

Britain has also taken a firm stance against repatriation, as has Belgium which denied a request by one of its nationals to be sent home from Iraq in exchange for cooperating with the authorities.

Several hundred foreigners, both men and women, are thought to have been detained in Iraq for alleged links to IS.

In December, a Swedish man of Iraqi origin was among 38 people executed after being convicted of "terrorism".

And on Sunday an Iraqi court sentenced a Turkish woman to death and 11 other foreign widows to life in jail for belonging to IS, despite their pleas that they had been duped or forced by their husbands to join them in Iraq.

A total of 509 foreign women, including 300 Turks, are being held in Iraq with 813 children, according to a security source.

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Battle to free Mosul of IS 'intellectual terrorism'
Mosul, Iraq (AFP) Feb 17, 2018
In a classroom of the University of Mosul, in the Islamic State group's former Iraqi capital, around 50 volunteers have undergone a week's training on how to combat the jihadists' ideology. The ulema, or Islamic scholars, aim to set up "brigades" tasked with ridding Mosul residents of extremist ideas following the city's recapture last July which ended three years of IS rule. "Mosul must be liberated from the thinking of Daesh after having been liberated militarily," said Mussaab Mahmud, who jus ... read more