ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Since the start of Iraq’s military operations last October to retake Mosul city from ISIS at least 26 bodies of executed men, blindfolded and handcuffed, have been found in government controlled areas, raising concerns about the involvement of government forces in extrajudicial killings.
According to a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) report on Sunday, 15 of the cases had been killed by government forces who claimed the men were affiliated with ISIS. In the remaining cases, bodies were found in the same manner in other government controlled areas, raising concerns for the government’s role in the executions.
It was also reported that the paramilitary unit Hashd al-Shaabi who is assisting government forces to retake Mosul from ISIS was responsible for the execution of 25 men in their custody and dumping the bodies in the Tigris River.
“The bodies of bound and blindfolded men are being found one after the other in and around Mosul and in the Tigris River, raising serious concerns about extrajudicial killings by government forces,” Lama Fakih, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch said. “The lack of any apparent government action to investigate these deaths undermines the government’s statements on protecting detainee rights.”
In late January, HRW interviewed a resident of Gogjali, a suburb of east Mosul, who stated he had found the body of a blindfolded man in the mud next to a trench. The resident and his neighbors buried the body, but stated they knew nothing of his identity or details of his death.
Extrajudicial executions are considered war crimes during an armed conflict and if they are systematic or widespread, they are considered to be crimes against humanity.
Given past reports of abuse of people by Hashd al-Shaabi and other government or security forces the treatment and possible executions carried cause a high concern for HRW.
At the end of April an aid worker visited the morgue at the Qayyarah hospital that had just reopened two months earlier and provided photos to HRW of a large pile of bodies, with a man on top, blindfolded and handcuffed, who had been shot.
When HRW visited the Qayyarah hospital to investigate in mid-May, the two lead doctors told the researchers that they were not allowed to respond to any inquiries regarding the morgue or allow visitors. The hospital had received these orders from the ministers of health and defense. No reason was provided, only that it was a “red line.”
In October Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced that his government will not tolerate human rights violations in the battlefield. Al-Abadi stated just two days before the offensive began that investigation committees had been established and some people had already been sent to trial for violations of human rights in the course of battle.
Forty-seven Hashd al-Shabbi members were convicted for murder, kidnappings and possessions of weapons in Iraq’s Central Criminal Court in Baghdad in January for offenses stretching back to 2014.
Majid al-Aaraji, head of Iraq’s Central Criminal Court, said that their sentences ranged between the death penalty, life imprisonment and 15 years imprisonment.
“If Iraqi authorities want civilians who spent over two years living under ISIS to feel safe and protected, they need to ensure that anyone responsible for murdering prisoners is brought to justice,” HRW’s Fakih stated.
