An Iraqi court sentenced on Monday a French man and a German woman to life in prison for belonging to ISIS. The sentences were read out in Iraq’s Central Criminal Court, with the judge saying he found French citizen Lahcen Ammar Gueboudj, 55, and German citizen Nadia Rainer Hermann, 22, guilty of joining the hardline militant group, according to Reuters. Embassy staff and translators from both countries were in attendance. Hermann had previously been sentenced to a year in jail for entering Iraq illegally. Iraq announced late 2017 the liberation of the entire country from ISIS, which occupied about four Iraqi provinces (Nineveh, Salah al-Din, Anbar) and large parts of Kirkuk and Diyala in June 2014 and posed a threat to the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. However, despite declaring the liberation of Iraqi territories, ISIS is still carrying out attacks through its sleeper cells in different parts of the country, mainly in the provinces of Kirkuk, Diyala, and Salahuddin. Iraqi security services have arrested thousands of foreigners with their families, who belong to the terrorist organization. While parents were put in jail, the children were placed in special shelters by the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs. Meanwhile, the embassies of these families’ countries were being contacted for the purpose of returning children, and Chechnya was the first to return children of Chechen parents. In regards to the life imprisonment sentences, the specialized security expert, Fadel Abu Raghif, told Asharq Al-Awsat that “sentences vary according to the type of offense committed as judges look at the matter from all angles and issue their verdicts accordingly." Last month, an Iraqi court sentenced 15 Turkish women to death after they confessed to belonging to ISIS and another Turkish woman was sentenced to life in prison. The Iraqi anti-terrorism law allows prosecuting people who are not involved in acts of violence but suspected of providing assistance to ISIS.