A group of Australian men suspected of being former Islamic State fighters are among more than 5,000 detainees transferred from Syria to Iraq, where they potentially face charges which could carry the death penalty.
Iraq’s national centre for international judicial cooperation confirmed last Friday it had taken custody of the 5,704 alleged former fighters from 61 countries, including citizens of Australia, New Zealand, the UK and the US.
There were unconfirmed reports overseas that the cohort included 13 Australians, but it was unclear who they were and what – if any – charges they could face.
It was also unclear whether any would be deported to their home countries if no charges were laid.
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The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Dfat) said it was aware of the transfer and was seeking further details from relevant authorities. It would not confirm how many citizens had been transferred, nor whether it was assisting them.
At least one Australian has previously been sentenced to death in Iraq, after a court found him guilty of being a member of Islamic State.
Iraq has consistently executed people convicted of terrorism offences by hanging. It was the fourth-highest executioner in the world in 2024, with 63 documented executions, most for terrorism offences.
There were no executions in 2025, but already seven have been reported in 2026. There are also reports of secret executions not declared by the government.
Under Australian law, authorities are prohibited from providing legal assistance – including evidence or witness testimony – for any criminal trial for an offence that carries the death penalty. But they can do so if an assurance has been given that the death penalty will not be imposed or carried out.
The Australian federal police were contacted for comment.
The detainee transfer was completed shortly before a group of 34 Australian women and children were forced to return to a Syrian detention camp, after being released by Kurdish authorities for their expected repatriation.
One has since been banned from returning to Australia for up to two years, while the Australian government has said it would not assist in the group’s repatriation.
‘Why aren’t we dealing with our alleged terrorists?’
International law experts have raised concerns about the “legal black hole” of indefinite detention in Syria – where thousands of suspected fighters have been held since the fall of IS’s so-called caliphate in 2019.
US forces said it took 23 days to transfer the Islamic State detainees from Syrian prisons to Iraq. Maj Gen Kevin Lambert said the transfer operation would “help prevent an ISIS resurgence in Syria”.
But Ben Saul, the UN special rapporteur on counter-terrorism and human rights, told the Guardian the prisoner transfer was “utterly irregular” and akin to the post-9/11 extraordinary renditions.
“Precisely because there has been no legal process in respect of these people, we don’t know if they’ve done anything wrong, if they’ve committed any kind of war crimes or act of terrorism,” Saul said.
“These prisoners are whoever was left alive at the end of the caliphate: civilians, victims of Isis, slaves, boys removed from their parents when they became adolescents, as well as potential terrorists.
“This dominant political narrative that these are all terrorists is not right, because there has been no legal process.”
Saul said that Australia has a strong judicial system that’s far better equipped than Iraq’s to provide a robust legal process.
“Why aren’t we dealing with our alleged terrorists?” Saul said. “These are Australians who were radicalised here, we allowed them to travel to Syria, I think there is a fair argument that Australia could be a more responsible global security actor, and assist in dealing with this cohort.”
Saul was among a group of UN experts who said they were alarmed by reports the US had started the “rapid, mass rendition of … alleged Islamic State prisoners to Iraq without any publicly known screening or legal process, oversight or protection for human rights”.
Since IS was territorially defeated in Syria, reports have sporadically appeared about captured Australians.
These men include some who had been presumed dead, and others whose families remain in detention camps in other parts of the country.
In February last year, the Guardian reported that Mustafa Hajj-Obeid, who was wounded in the extremist group’s final battle and whose fate was not publicly known, had been discovered alive and in custody in a prison in north-eastern Syria.
He is one of a cohort of accused IS members whose Australian citizenship was stripped and then restored in 2022 after a legal challenge, and had been reported as missing for the previous six years since the military defeat of IS.
The Iraqi government has been contacted for comment.
