ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A Syrian national charged by an Iraqi court with terrorism-related offenses - including glorifying Islamic State (ISIS) leaders and inciting attacks against Iraqi forces - has been repatriated to Damascus after being “cleared of the charges against him,” Syrian state media reported Wednesday.
“Syrian national Mohammed Anqa arrived Tuesday evening at Damascus International Airport from Iraq,” the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported, noting that he has been “cleared of the charges against him.”
The state-run agency credited his release to “the intense diplomatic efforts” of “the Syrian government and its continuous follow-up on the case, in coordination with the Iraqi government, which contributed to settling his case and ensuring his safe return to the homeland.”
Speaking to reporters at the airport, Brigadier General Abdul Rahman al-Dabbagh, a senior official in Syria’s General Intelligence Service, said that Damascus state institutions, “under the direct guidance of [interim] President Ahmed al-Sharaa,” are working to “protect the rights and freedoms of every Syrian citizen wherever they may be.”
“The Syrian citizen is not just a number, but has weight both inside Syria and abroad,” Dabbagh added, thanking “the brotherly country of Iraq for its dealings and cooperation with the Syrian side.”
For his part, the released national, Anqa, was quoted by SANA as saying that his case in Iraq “was fully resolved” and that the charges against him stemmed from a “misunderstanding.”
In late October, Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council said Anqa had been indicted by a court in southern Iraq for “praising and encouraging the killing of members of the Iraqi Army and the Popular Mobilization Forces [PMF]” through his social media accounts.
The Council also rejected claims circulating on “some social media pages” that a death sentence had been issued against the Syrian national, or that he was arrested for “publishing a video glorifying the current Syrian [interim] president.”
It clarified that the ruling against the defendant was instead for “the crime of confessing to the glorification of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi,” the former leader of the Islamic State’s (ISIS) self-declared caliphate, who was killed in a US raid in northwestern Syria in October 2019.
According to the Council, Anqa had also “called on people to join the terrorist [ISIS] entity” and “posted videos of himself burning a portrait of Imam Ali bin Abi Talib (599-661 CE)” - the first imam in Shiite Islam and the fourth caliph in Islam - “with the aim of provoking chaos and sectarian tension.”
The Council emphasized at the time that “this ruling is not final and will be reviewed by the Federal Court of Cassation once the case file is received, as it is subject to automatic appeal (cassation).”
The Syrian foreign ministry later said it was following up on Anqa’s case through official channels.
Mohammad al-Ahmad, director of the ministry’s Arab Affairs Department, said in a post on X that Foreign Minister Assad al-Shaibani had instructed officials to ensure the case was “followed up with the Iraqi government through official channels until the authenticity of the published document is verified and further action is taken accordingly.”