Iraqi court sentences 3 to death for terror charges

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — An Iraqi criminal court on Thursday handed death sentences to three people accused of having a hand in a terrorist bomb attack that targeted southeastern Iraq earlier this month, the country’s Supreme Judicial Council announced.

The sentence was handed to the alleged suspects by Dhi Qar criminal court for their “participation in detonating motorcycles equipped with explosives in Basra's al-Jumhuriya neighborhood which led to the death and injury of a large number of civilians.”

The statement added they were sentenced in accordance with Article Four of 2005 Counter-Terrorism Law which states "anyone found guilty of committing a terror offense is given the death sentence, with life imprisonment given to those who assist or hide those convicted of terrorism."

An explosion struck Basra's city centre on December 7, killing four civilians and injuring four others.

Iraq is one of the world’s top four executioners after China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, according to Amnesty International.

Since the rise of Islamic State (ISIS) in 2014, thousands of people have been detained across Iraq for suspected links to terrorist groups, including ISIS, while hundreds have been executed.

At least 17 people sentenced to death for terror charges have been executed this year, reported AFP while Amnesty recorded 100 executions in Iraq in 2019, a number that dropped to 45 in the following year.

Three men were hanged in Nasiriyah city for terror offences earlier this month.

Raz Salayi, researcher at Amnesty, told Rudaw English early in December that executions do not bring justice to those who suffered from ISIS atrocity.

“Iraq’s continuous use of the death penalty despite serious failings in its fair trial proceedings - including the wide use of torture to get “confessions” - is one of the largest obstacles in moving past the legacy of the recent conflict. Executions bring no tangible justice to the victims of IS crimes,” she said.

In January, an official from Iraq's presidency told AFP more than 340 execution orders "for terrorism or criminal acts" were ready to be carried out.

Another presidency official earlier this year told AFP that all the orders were signed after 2014, most of them under ex-president Fuad Massum and at a time when Islamic State (ISIS) occupied a third of the country.

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