Erbil court hands death sentence to man over killing of family members

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - An Erbil court on Tuesday sentenced a doctor to death for murdering four members of his family earlier this year.

The killings took place on March 13 in Erbil’s Farmanbaran neighborhood, when Sirwan Mahmoud fatally shot his wife as well her parents, and her sister following a family dispute - a crime that shocked the public across the Kurdistan Region and beyond.

“Today, a judge issued a verdict in the case of Dr. Sirwan Mahmood, who was charged with murdering his wife and her family members,” Birzo Saeed, a consultant lawyer at the Erbil Appellate Court, told Rudaw.

According to Saeed, the court imposed one death sentence and two life sentences.

“Dr. Sirwan received life imprisonment for murdering his wife, another life sentence for murdering her sister, and the death penalty for killing his mother-in-law and father-in-law and injuring a child,” he said.

At the time of the attack, witnesses told Rudaw that the couple had longstanding family issues and that Mahood’s wife had recently moved back to her parents’ home.

“His wife asked for a divorce and the doctor couldn’t stand it,” one witness said at the time.

Firearms are widely available in the Kurdistan Region, where an estimated 70 percent of people own weapons, including those bought on the black market. Despite government efforts to regulate gun ownership, shootings remain a persistent security challenge.