The PMF’s investigations and preventive security directorate announced that its forces had arrested a suspected ISIS security member in Anbar’s Fallujah city. The individual is accused of having been specialized in “assassinating officers and security members, and preparing car bombs,” during the militant group’s control over the province.
The suspect was handed the death sentence in accordance with Article 4 of the anti-terrorism law, the PMF statement added.
Article 4 of the 2005 Iraqi anti-terrorism law states that anyone who participates in committing a “terrorist act,” as defined by the law, shall be sentenced to death, with life imprisonment sentences being handed out to those found guilty of intentionally concealing a “terrorist act” or harboring a perpetrator of such act.
Since the rise of ISIS in 2014, thousands of people have been detained across Iraq for suspected links to terrorist groups, including ISIS, while hundreds have been executed. The United Nations has criticized Iraq’s trials of ISIS suspects, saying proceedings have not met fair trial standards and raising concerns about allegations of torture.
Iraq was the fourth country in the Middle East and North Africa region for the number of executions carried out in 2022, according to a May report by Amnesty International. The country carried out at least 11 recorded executions and handed out at least 41 recorded death sentences during that year.
