Man Who Fought Against Islamic State Convicted In Swedish Court

A member of Hashed Al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization units) removes a sign on a lamp post be
AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP/Getty Images

A 38-year-old man living in Sweden who fought the Islamic State alongside Iraqi forces has been convicted by a court for war crimes after he posed in photos alongside the corpses of Islamic State fighters.

The Örebro District Court sentenced the 38-year-old to a year and three months in prison for taking part in the photos which were made back in 2015 when he was a part of Iraqi forces fighting the terror group Swedish broadcaster Sveriges Radio reports.

Originally from Iraq, the man posed with corpses, some of them mutilated, in pictures and in videos which were then distributed online on Facebook.

Prosecutor at the national unit against international and organized crime Peter Larsson commented on the court ruling saying, “No matter who the person is, war must be conducted in a civilized manner and no one should violate opponents unnecessarily.”

Larrson added that he was satisfied with the sentence saying, “It is sufficiently sensible because it should be of importance. Hopefully, it can control the behaviour so that one else thinks of it.”

Alain Souss, the lawyer for the man, said he is weighing the possibility of appealing the verdict and that his client was ordered to take part in the pictures and videos.

The case is not the first war crimes case to take place following the migrant crisis of 2015. A Syrian migrant was also charged in 2017 for posing for photos alongside dead Islamic State fighters while fighting for the Syrian government of President Bashar Al-Assad.

In January of 2018, the Swedish Migration Board claimed that reports of suspected war crimes had risen from 42 in 2015 to 79 in 2017.

Head of the war crimes commission Patricia Rakic Arle noted that “a third of cases are related to incidents in Syria or Iraq, and besides those, there are scattered cases from other countries where there have been or are still conflicts.”

Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com

 

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