Kurdish presidential guard sentenced to life in prison

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – A Kurdish Peshmerga member of the Iraqi Presidential Guards who shot and killed a Baghdad municipality official when they failed to stop at a checkpoint has been sentenced to life in prison by an Iraqi court. 

 

The presidential guard Bashdar Omer, 31, from Kirkuk, shot the official on August 22, 2017. 

 

“In our investigations, we have found the case has been politicized, and the court has made the decision under pressure,” Diyar Omer, Bashdar’s brother, told Rudaw. 

 

“My brother mistakenly shot the deputy head of the Dorah municipality of Baghdad,” Diyar said. 

 

The brother blamed the presidency. Fuad Masum is the Kurdish president of Iraq. Before him was Jalal Talabani – also a Kurd. 

 

“The republic’s presidency should have reached reconciliation with the family of the killed so that things would not have reached this stage,” Diyar added. 

 

Reconciliation is usually sought between families, in which the killer pays financial compensation for the crime. 

 

The brother said they will appeal the decision, if the presidency does not do so itself. 

 

In 2014, a Peshmerga presidential guard lieutenant shot dead Mohammed Bidaiwi Shammari, an Iraqi university professor and journalist after he refused to stop at a checkpoint. 

 

The then Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki vowed to avenge the blood of the journalist.