The French lawyer for suspected Islamic State members transferred from Syria said they were being treated inhumanely in Iraqi prisons.

A group of French nationals accused of being members of the Islamic State (ISIS) were transferred by the US from Syria to an Iraqi prison, where their lawyers said the prisoners were subjected to “torture and inhumane treatment”.

French media reported on Wednesday that lawyers Marie Dose and Matthieu Bagard visited the defendants on a recent trip to Baghdad and said their clients had been mistreated in Iraqi custody.

Lawyers said the abuse – which included being slapped, strangled, handcuffed behind their backs “with a pulley system” and threatened with rape with an iron bar – was intended to “get them to acknowledge their presence in Iraq”, which would give the Iraqi justice system the power to try them for the crimes they are accused of.

The alleged Islamic State members “assured us that they had never been to Iraq before being captured in Syria and transferred to Baghdad,” the lawyer said.

Deaths in custody in Syria

Lawyers representing the families of prisoners said they met with 13 of the 47 French nationals held in Iraq accused of being members of the Islamic State during a two-day visit that began on Sunday.

The 13 men said they were arrested between 2017 and March 23, 2019, the day the Islamic State lost control of Baghouz, Syria, ending its final hold on the territory.

They said they were held in harsh conditions in a prison in northeastern Syria, with four French prisoners among them dying from illness and “serious deficiencies” and that they were repeatedly interrogated by the FBI, CIA and other agencies believed to represent France and the European Union.

Mobilization of U.S. troops

The lawyers’ comments came as U.S. military aircraft moved large numbers of Islamic State detainees from Syrian prisons and detention camps to Iraq.

The transfers follow a recent offensive against Syrian government forces in the northeast. Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which the United States trains and supports in the fight against the Islamic State. The SDF have for years controlled camps and prisons housing suspected Islamic State members.

ISIS detainee escapes prison amid fighting Shadadi and other cities That sparked fears they could regroup and pose a new security threat, prompting the U.S. military to arrange flights to transfer prisoners to Iraqi prisons.

The Associated Press reported on Sunday that 275 prisoners had been transferred so far, while Anadolu Agency reported that thousands more were planned to be transferred under the deal.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said on Sunday that the transfer of Islamic State detainees was “temporary” and urged countries to repatriate their nationals.

In a separate statement on Sunday, Iraq’s top judicial body said the transferred detainees would be prosecuted after a meeting of senior security and political officials.