A court in the Iraqi capital on Sunday sentenced to death a Turkish woman and 11 other foreign widows to life in jail for belonging to the Islamic State group. The 12 women, 11 Turks and an Azeri, some of whom appeared in the dock nursing infants, were convicted despite their pleas that they had been duped or forced by their husbands to join them in Iraq.
The women, aged between 20 and 50, were all arrested in Mosul or Tal Afar where their husbands were killed as Iraqi forces recaptured the northern cities from IS last year. "I got to know my husband through the internet. He proposed we meet in Turkey but an intermediary there told me he would drive me to my future husband without saying where," said Angie Omrane, the Azeri woman.
"I thought we were staying in Turkey but I found myself in Syria and then my husband took me to Iraq." Leila, one of the Turkish women, said: "My husband forced me to come to Iraq by threatening to take away my two-year-old son if I didn't follow him. 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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