Iraq has repatriated and interrogated the family of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the slain chief of Daesh Takfiri terrorist group, according to the country’s judiciary.
Iraq’s judiciary has secured “the repatriation of the family of the terrorist Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi,” the Supreme Judicial Council said on its website on Thursday.
According to the Judicial Council, the repatriation came as part of efforts to “recover those accused of terrorism who have been on the run outside of Iraq.”
The statement said Baghdadi’s relatives had been questioned and “investigations continue with them to bring to light the most important secrets” of Daesh.
It, however, did not specify the number of the family members or where they had been brought back from.
But a judicial source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, was quoted by AFP as saying that Baghdadi’s wife, “detained in Turkey,” had been returned along with her children.
In November 2019, Turkey said it had arrested a wife of Baghdadi, whom Turkish media identified as Asma Fawzi Muhammad al-Qubaysi, in June 2018.
She revealed “a lot of information” about the terrorist group’s “inner workings,” a Turkish official said at the time.
In October 2019, then-US President Donald Trump announced that the US Special Operations Forces conducted a raid targeting Baghdadi in northwestern Syria, during which the Daesh leader killed himself by igniting a suicide vest.
However, the US did not show Baghdadi’s remains and claimed they were dumped at sea within 24 hours of his death.
Many experts believe that the US created the Daesh terrorist group and helped it rise and commence its reign of terror and destruction in Syria and Iraq in 2014.
Daesh has already been driven out of all its urban bastions both in Iraq and Syria, but its remnants carry out sporadic terror attacks in both neighboring Arab countries.
Over several years, Iraqi courts have sentenced hundreds to death as well as life in prison under the penal code for membership in “a terrorist group.” Among those declared guilty of joining Daesh were more than 500 foreign men and women.
