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Thread: Iraq Capital Punishment News

  1. #31
    Administrator Aaron's Avatar
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    Iraq upholds death penalty for Speicher massacre

    Iraqi President Fuad Masum on Sunday ratified the death sentences of 36 people in connection with the 2014 mass killing of hundreds of Iraqi air force cadets by ISIL militants in northern Iraq.

    In a Sunday statement, the Iraqi Presidency said Masum has “approved all the death sentences handed down in the crime of the Speicher Camp”.

    On June 12, 2014, ISIL terrorist group seized the northern city of Tikrit and posted a video purporting to show the mass killing of hundreds of security officers and military students. The officers were alleged to be affiliated to the Speicher base.

    The Iraqi Ministry of Human Rights said the number of those murdered was 2,398.

    Last week, an Iraqi court sentenced 36 people to death in connection with the mass killings and sent the verdicts to the Iraqi president for approval.

    Iraq has plunged into a security vacuum since June 2014, when ISIL stormed the northern city of Mosul and declared what it calls a caliphate in Iraq and Syria.

    http://www.worldbulletin.net/world/1...icher-massacre

    Iraq to execute 36 within days

    Iraqi President Fuad Masoum has announced that the government will execute 36 terrorists from Islamic State who have been convicted of killing 1,700 people held captive after promising that they would be sent back to their families.

    Masoum, who approved the death sentence this week, said the members of the terror group, which is also known as ISIS, ISIL or Daesh, were involved in a June 2014 massacre in Camp Speicher, a former U.S. military base near the central city of Tikrit, according to Ahlu Bayt News Agency.

    The ISIS members will be sent to the gallows within days. They were sentenced to death in February by the central criminal court in Baghdad.

    http://www.christianpost.com/news/ir...people-168165/
    Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products.

    "They will hurt you. They will hurt your grandma, these people. The root cause of this is there's no discipline in the homes, they don't go to school, you know, they live off the government, no personal accountability, and they just beat people up for no reason, and it's disgusting." - Former Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters

  2. #32
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Saddam Hussein built torture dungeon and execution chamber in heart of New York City opposite mayor Michael Bloomberg's home, insiders claim

    Saddam Hussein built a secret torture dungeon and execution chamber in the heart of New York City and even shipped the bodies of his victims out of the country using diplomatic immunity, insiders say.

    On taking control of Iraq in 1979, the dictator installed a 'detention room' in the basement of the country's Permanent Mission building in Manhattan's Upper East Side.

    There, sources told the NY Post, Iraqi civilians were held in detention, subjected to gruesome torture and even murdered - just across the road from Michael Bloomberg, who would later become the city's mayor

    The detention room was equipped with sturdy doors that were near-impossible to break in or out of, and buried so deep that victims' screams could not be heard.

    And even if they did somehow manage to break out, guard equipped with 9mm pistols and Kalashnikov rifles would be on hand to deal with the 'problem.'

    In that terrifying dungeon, beneath the five-story Mission at 14 East 79th Street, family members of 'troublesome' Iraqi citizens would be locked up to coerce their relatives back in Iraq.

    Some would even be tortured by Hussein's sinister agents, the Mukhabarat, who would pull out fingernails and toenails, and hit them with hoses, planks and copper wire.

    If anyone died in the dungeon - and they did, according to the official sources, who did not want to be named - their bodies would be smuggled out of the US

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ouse-insiders-
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

  3. #33
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Ten years since Saddam executed

    On December 30, 2006, Saddam was hanged at the military intelligence headquarters in the Kadhimiyah district of northern Baghdad.Officials who witnessed the pre-dawn execution say Saddam, 69, remained defiant to the end, railing against his Iranian and American enemies and praising insurgents who had pushed Iraq to the brink of civil war.

    "I didn't see any signs of fear," then national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie, who oversaw the execution, told AFP in 2013."I didn't hear any regret from him, I didn't hear any request for mercy from God... or request for pardon," he said.Rubaie said he pulled the lever to hang Saddam, but it did not work. An unidentified person then pulled it a second time, killing him.

    Just before he was executed, Saddam started reciting the Islamic testament of faith, but was unable to finish it.A two-and-a-half minute video shot on a mobile phone showed him falling though the trapdoor to his death amid shouts from those present.A close-up showed his head lolling to one side in the noose, his neck snapped.

    The former strongman was executed after being found guilty of crimes against humanity for the 1982 killing of 148 Shiites in the town of Dujail. The massacre followed an assassination attempt against him there.

    His rule was marked by brutal repression, disastrous wars and punishing international sanctions.Saddam disputed the legitimacy of a special Iraqi tribunal set up with US support to try him, and described his October 2005 to July 2006 trial as "a comedy".Some Shiite Muslims, who suffered under his regime, danced in the streets after the hanging.

    But the execution, in which the United States said it played no part, was slammed by Sunni Iraqis and governments around the world -- although not by Saddam's arch-enemies Israel and Iran.The day after his execution, Saddam was buried in the village of Awja, his birthplace near Tikrit, 160 kilometres (100 miles) north of Baghdad.

    http://www.newvision.co.ug/new_visio...addam-executed
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

  4. #34
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    German ISIS bride nicknamed ‘Belle of Mosul’ may face death penalty


    By The Associated Press

    Iraq’s prime minister said the teenage German girl found in Mosul last month who ran away from home after communicating with ISIS extremists online is still being held in a Baghdad prison.

    Speaking to The Associated Press on Saturday, Haider al-Abadi said Iraq’s judiciary will decide if the teen will face the death penalty.

    “You know teenagers under certain laws, they are accountable for their actions especially if the act is a criminal activity when it amounts to killing innocent people,” he said.

    Sixteen-year-old Linda W. ran away last summer from her hometown of Pulsnitz in eastern Germany. She was found in the basement of a home in Mosul’s Old City by Iraqi forces who are driving ISIS militants from the city.

    According to local reports, she was dubbed the Belle of Mosul by soldiers during what was described as a 'walk of shame' to a make-shift prison.




    Captured Indians

    In the interview, Abadi also said the fate of 39 Indians captured by ISIS when the extremists initially overran Mosul three years ago is still unknown.

    Abadi said the situation is “still under investigation at the moment. I cannot comment any further.”

    Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj had told relatives of the workers in July that they might be held in a prison in Badush, northwest of Mosul, which Iraqi forces have taken back from ISIS.

    The abducted workers, mostly from northern India, had been employed by an Iraqi construction company. Thousands of Indians worked and lived in Iraq before ISIS swept across the country’s north and west in 2014.

    Iraqi forces declared victory over ISIS in Mosul in July after a grueling nine-month fight.

    http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News...h-penalty.html

  5. #35
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    CONDEMNED TO DIE: Brit ISIS fanatics face execution in Iraq as 6,000 captured jihadis get the death penalty in terror trials lasting under 20 minutes

    By Nicola Stow
    The Sun

    BRIT Jihadists captured after the fall of ISIS in Iraq are facing the death penalty in terror trials lasting less than 20 minutes.

    Iraqi courts are sentencing Islamic State fighters - including Europeans - to execution by hanging.

    The war-torn country's Justice Ministry has disclosed 194 terrorism-related executions since 2016, including at least 27 foreigners from other Arab countries, according to a review of ministry news releases.

    Last month the ministry said it had executed an additional 38 prisoners on terrorism-related charges, but it did not specify their nationalities, prompting a rebuke by the United Nations human rights office.

    At least one of those executed was from Sweden, according to researchers on human rights and terrorism.

    Up to 6,000 more are on death row, and their nationalities have not been disclosed, according to the United Nations.

    Many more suspected militants are in custody, including at least four Europeans.

    More than 800 UK citizens are thought to have gone to fight for Isis in Iraq and Syria, including teenagers, women and young families.

    Three weeks ago, two Turkish men who claimed they had travelled to Iraq to work as plumbers were found guilty of being ISIS fighters and sent to the gallows after a hearing that lasted just 18 minutes, reported the Washington Post.

    In December 2016, judge Abu Iman, who rules at the Qayyarah terrorist investigations court, warned that at least 100 Brit Jihadists captured in the beseiged city of Mosul would face the death penalty.

    He said: “They have committed crimes against Iraqis so they should face local law."

    And last month UK defence secretary, Gavin Williamson, said Britons who have fought for Islamic State abroad should be "hunted down and killed".

    He suggested there was deliberate targeting of British Jihadists by the armed forces fighting ISIS as the group retreats in Syria and Iraq.

    He said: “A dead terrorist can’t cause any harm to Britain. I do not believe that any terrorist, whether they come from this country or any other, should ever be allowed back into this country. We should do everything we can do to destroy and eliminate that threat.”

    Williamson said Jihadist groups in Libya, Iraq and Syria were breeding grounds for plotting attacks in the UK.

    He added: “Our job in terms of eliminating will not stop this year, will not stop next year – it is something we have got to continue to pursue."

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/529906...enalty-trials/

  6. #36
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    German woman sentenced to death in Iraq for joining Islamic State

    By Ahmed Saad
    Reuters

    An Iraqi criminal court has ruled that a German woman of Moroccan descent should incur the death penalty for joining Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS), according to the court’s spokesman.

    The case marks the first time a foreign woman has been sentenced to death in Iraq for joining the group, as Reuters reports.

    The woman, whose name hasn’t been disclosed, was guilty of “offering logistic support and helping the terrorist group to carry out criminal acts,” as well as “taking part in attacks against security forces,” the Supreme Judicial Council’s spokesman, Abdul-Sattar Bayrkda, said, according to AP.

    The defendant joined IS after she travelled from Germany to Syria and further to Iraq, along with her two daughters, who eventually married militants, Bayrkda said. The woman was captured by Iraqi forces last year during the battle for Mosul.

    The sentence of death by hanging can be appealed, the spokesman added.

    Following Baghdad declaring victory over IS in Mosul in July 2017, the Iraqi military caught a group of female fighters, including four German nationals. At the time, media reports said that two women, one of Moroccan origin and the other Chechen-born, were among those detained. Additionally, a German teenage girl was arrested after she converted to Islam and went missing for a year.

    According to German media, the girl, named as Linda W., is still held in Iraqi detention, with her potential extradition still in question.

    In October last year, the Iraqi ambassador to Belgium, Jawad Al-Chlaihawi, told local media that nearly 14,000 family members of suspected IS militants were being held near Mosul. At least 100 Europeans would be tried in Iraq, with most of them likely to receive a death sentence, Al-Chlaihawi said.

    https://www.rt.com/news/416551-iraq-...-german-woman/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
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    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
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  7. #37
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    Three French female jihadists face death sentence in Iraq

    By RFI

    Three French women who joined the Islamic State (IS) armed group before being captured by Iraqi forces could face the death penalty as they await trial in Baghdad.

    The women were detained after Iraqi fighters ousted the jihadists from Mosul last July, one source said, confirming a report on RMC radio.

    One 28-year-old woman left in 2015 for the group's "caliphate" stretching over parts of Syria and Iraq along with her husband, who has reportedly been killed.

    She is being detained with her daughter, who was born after their arrival.

    "We don't know what exactly she is accused of, what her detention conditions are like and whether she is being allowed the means to defend herself," said the woman's lawyer, Martin Pradel.

    He said he had received "no response" from France's foreign ministry on the case. The Red Cross has been his only source of information, he added.

    A second woman, a 27-year-old named as Melina, also left for the region in 2015, and is being held with her baby. Her three older children have been returned to France.

    "We expect France, if Melina is sentenced to death, to mobilise with the same intensity it has for other French citizens sentenced to death, in particular Serge Atlaoui," said her lawyers, William Bourdon and Vincent Brengarth.

    French diplomats have waged an intense campaign to free Atlaoui, who is being held in Indonesia and facing the death penalty on drug trafficking charges.

    But government officials have said French fighters arrested in Syria and Iraq should be tried there if they can be guaranteed a fair trial.

    Defence minister Florence Parly said Sunday that "we can't be naive" regarding French citizens who left to join IS.

    "When they are caught by local authorities, as far as possible they should be tried by these local authorities," she told France 3 television.

    On Sunday, an Iraqi court sentenced a German woman to death by hanging after finding her guilty of belonging to IS, the first such sentence in a case involving a European woman.

    Around 40 French nationals, both men and women, are currently in detention camps or prisons in Syria and Iraq, with about 20 children, a source has said.

    http://en.rfi.fr/middle-east/2018012...-sentence-iraq
    Last edited by Moh; 01-24-2018 at 09:44 AM. Reason: Posted in the wrong thread.

  8. #38
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    Facing death in Iraq, European jihadists won't get help from home

    The Islamic State group has claimed a number of attacks on European soil, leading to little sympathy for foreign fighters facing the death penalty in Iraq and Syria

    European nations rarely miss a chance to slam the use of the death penalty by others, but they have largely turned a deaf ear to pleas from citizens facing execution in Iraq for fighting with the Islamic State group.

    Several hundred foreigners, both men and women, are thought to have been detained in Iraq since the counter-offensive that dislodged IS fighters from the country's urban centres last year.

    Diplomatic efforts to secure their return to Europe for trial have been half-hearted at best, with few politicians eager to be seen defending people who joined the terror group behind the deaths of dozens on home soil in recent years.

    More often they reiterate that Iraq has the sovereign right to try and punish people found guilty of killing its own citizens in an effort to create a modern "caliphate".

    The fate of European captives in Syria is even more complicated, since they have often been seized by Kurds who do not have a formally recognised state of their own.

    Lawyers for French fighters in Syria, for example, have claimed they are being held "arbitrarily" by non-state authorities -- an argument that has failed to sway official stances so far.

    Faced with overwhelmingly hostile public opinion, humanitarian appeals have also made little traction, even when captives are being held with young children born after they left for Iraq and Syria.

    On Sunday, an Iraqi court condemned a German woman to death by hanging after finding her guilty of belonging to IS, the first such sentence in a case involving a European woman.

    So far, the German government has said only that it is providing "consular support" for four of its citizens held in Iraq, declining to provide details.

    'No leniency'

    In December, an Iraqi-Swedish man was hanged along with 37 others accused of being IS or Al-Qaeda members, despite efforts by Sweden to have the prisoner serve a life sentence instead.

    "These jihadists have never had any qualms about what they're doing, and I don't see why we should have any for them," French defence minister Florence Parly said Monday.

    Three French women captured after Iraqi forces retook the city of Mosul last July are awaiting trial in Baghdad, sources close to their cases say, and risk the death penalty as well.

    2 of the women are being held along with their young children.

    "When they are caught by local authorities, as far as possible they should be tried by these local authorities," Parly added in a separate interview on Sunday.

    Britain has also ta ken a firm stance against repatriation, as has Belgium, which denied a request by Tarik Jadaoun, a Belgium detained in Iraq, to be sent home in exchange for cooperating with the authorities.

    "I don't see how it's possible to negotiate with war criminals," Prime Minister Charles Michel said in December, adding that "there can be no leniency."

    Security experts generally discount the value of any intelligence offered by former extremists, while warning that bringing back their children exposes other risks.

    Youths exposed to decapitations and other atrocities "could be time bombs, given what they have seen," said Paris prosecutor Francois Molins, who has overseen investigations into terror attacks on French soil.

    Rule of law?

    Iraq is among the countries which execute the most prisoners, along with China, Iran and Saudi Arabia, according to Amnesty International.

    Rights groups and lawyers have urged European governments to live up to their ideals.

    Lawyers for one of the French women held in Iraq point to France's intense diplomatic campaign for Serge Atlaoui, who faces the death penalty in Indonesia on drug trafficking charges.

    "No matter how grave and horrific the acts, if a European citizen risks the death penalty, we must demand that the state holding him guarantee it won't be carried out, or transfer him to his country of origin for trial," said Patrick Baudoin of the International

    Federation of Human Rights. "If we start allowing exceptions to this principle, we're no longer applying the rule of law," he said.

    But a European diplomatic source said the principle was to let Iraqi courts rule as they see fit.

    "If there's a risk of capital punishment, we will intervene" via consular services as is the case anywhere else, the source said.

    (Source: al-monitor.com)
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  9. #39
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    In Iraq, death-row jihadists 'confess' on prime-time TV

    By AFP

    Every Friday in Iraq, a gripping show on state television beams the alleged confessions of death-row jihadists into homes around the country.

    At peak viewing time, it broadcasts gruesome images of their purported crimes before interviewing the convicts, who appear clad in orange or yellow jumpsuits.

    Baghdad declared victory against the Islamic State group in December, after years of fighting to regain vast stretches of territory the jihadists seized in 2014.

    Iraq has detained thousands of suspected members of IS, a group infamous for deadly attacks, mass killings and the execution of detainees in orange jumpsuits.

    Once a week, a show titled "In the grip of the law" escorts convicted jihadists back to the scene of their crime under heavy security.

    By spotlighting IS atrocities, the show aims to stamp out any remaining support for the jihadist group's ideology, its presenter says.

    "I get tipped off by the interior ministry, the defence ministry or national security, who captured them," Ahmad Hassan, 36, says.

    "They choose the case to highlight and I ask the justice ministry for permission to interview the convict," says Hassan, whose show is aired by state channel Al-Iraqiya.

    The programme is up to its 150th episode, he says, and not about to end any time soon.

    "Even if IS has lost militarily, its ideology still exists," he says.

    "Its supporters view others as non-believers and will continue to murder as long as its ideology lives on."

    - 'Detective agency' -

    Dressed in a beige suit and brown tie, on a set meant to evoke a detective agency, Hassan starts his show each week with shocking images.

    One episode opens with a photo of dozens of Sunni tribesmen lying in a pool of their own blood, after their 2014 execution by IS in the town of Heet, northwest of Baghdad.

    It then introduces Mithaq Hamid Hekmet, 41, one of those condemned over the massacre, who recounts the killings in chilling detail -- even citing the names of others who took part

    On the show's set, a mahogony desk, stacks of papers, maps of Baghdad and mugshots of the day's convict seek to create an intriguing atmosphere to draw in viewers.

    In another episode, former IS finance official Mohammad Hamid Omar, nom de guerre Abu Hajjaj, describes his speciality: extorting funds from pharmacies, schools, real estate agencies, petrol stations and doctors.

    Hassan says all of his interviewees have been found guilty and sentenced -- most to death, but some to lengthy prison terms.

    They are mostly Iraqis, but also sometimes nationals from other Arab countries.

    Some have since been executed, Hassan says, but "that's the justice ministry's business, not mine".

    Iraq executed more than 100 people last year, mostly after "terrorism" convictions, the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has said.

    The country's anti-terrorism law orders the death penalty for any person who commits, plans, funds or assists in acts of "terrorism".

    - 'Why kill my sons?' -

    Hassan says all his convict interviewees take part "voluntarily", and know participating will in no way help to alleviate their sentence.

    "They do it because they have regrets," he says.

    "They want to show the horrendous acts they have committed and reveal the thinking of the group they belonged to, to persuade others not to make the same mistake."

    The show's most poignant moments are meetings set up between the convicts and the mothers of their purported victims.

    In one such scene, the mother of two policemen killed by IS vents her anger.

    "Why did you kill my sons Ahmad and Hamid?" she asks three sentenced jihadists, who hang their heads in response.

    "They were your friends. Did they ever wrong you? Why did you destroy my family?" asks the woman, dressed from head-to-toe in black.

    Another woman, whose son IS shot in the head, asks four prisoners: "How can you eat with those hands that killed my son?"

    Human rights groups have criticised the programme for showing death-row inmates on television before their execution.

    Hassan says the interviews comply with human rights laws.

    "We don't pressure anyone," he says.

    "But we're in a situation of war and it's best to focus on the rights of victims, rather than those of the terrorists".

    Interior ministry spokesman Saad Maan is a fan of the programme.

    "Thanks to this show, people can see security forces provide true information. It creates bonds with the population."

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp...e-time-TV.html

  10. #40
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    More Than 3,000 People Have Been Sentenced to Death in Iraq for Alleged Terror Links

    By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA AND SUSANNAH GEROGE
    TIME

    BAGHDAD — Iraq has detained or imprisoned at least 19,000 people accused of connections to the Islamic State group or other terror-related offenses, and sentenced more than 3,000 of them to death, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.

    The mass incarceration and speed of guilty verdicts raise concerns over potential miscarriages of justice — and worries that jailed militants are recruiting within the general prison population to build new extremist networks.

    The AP count is based partially on an analysis of a spreadsheet listing all 27,849 people imprisoned in Iraq as of late January, provided by an official who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. Thousands more also are believed to be held in detention by other bodies, including the Federal Police, military intelligence and Kurdish forces. Those exact figures could not be immediately obtained.

    The AP determined that 8,861 of the prisoners listed in the spreadsheet were convicted of terrorism-related charges since the beginning of 2013 — arrests overwhelmingly likely to be linked to the Islamic State group, according to an intelligence figure in Baghdad.

    In addition, another 11,000 people currently are being detained by the intelligence branch of the Interior Ministry, undergoing interrogation or awaiting trial, a second intelligence official said. Both intelligence officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the press.

    “There’s been great overcrowding … Iraq needs a large number of investigators and judges to resolve this issue,” Fadhel al-Gharwari, a member of Iraqi’s parliament-appointed human rights commission, told the AP.

    Al-Gharwari said many legal proceedings have been delayed because the country lacks the resources to respond to the spike in incarcerations.

    Large numbers of Iraqis were detained during the 2000s, when the U.S. and Iraqi governments were battling Sunni militants, including al-Qaida, and Shiite militias. In 2007, at the height of the fighting, the U.S. military held 25,000 detainees. The spreadsheet obtained by the AP showed that about 6,000 people arrested on terror charges before 2013 still are serving those sentences.

    But the current wave of detentions has hit the Iraqi justice system much harder because past arrests were spread out over a much longer period and the largest numbers of detainees were held by the American military, with only a portion sent to Iraqi courts and the rest released.

    Human Rights Watch warned in November that the broad use of terrorism laws meant those with minimal connections to the Islamic State group are caught up in prosecutions alongside those behind the worst abuses. The group estimated a similar number of detainees and prisoners — about 20,000 in all.

    “Based on all my meetings with senior government officials, I get the sense that no one — perhaps not even the prime minster himself — knows the full number of detainees,” said Belkis Wille, the organization’s senior Iraq researcher.

    Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who is running to retain his position in national elections slated for May, has repeatedly called for accelerated death sentences for those charged with terrorism.

    The spreadsheet analyzed by the AP showed that 3,130 prisoners have been sentenced to death on terrorism charges since 2013.

    Since 2014, about 250 executions of convicted IS members have been carried out, according to the Baghdad-based intelligence official. About 100 of those took place last year, a sign of the accelerating pace of hangings.

    The United Nations has warned that fast-tracking executions puts innocent people at greater risk of being convicted and executed, “resulting in gross, irreversible miscarriages of justice.”

    The rising number of those detained and imprisoned reflects the more than four-year fight against the Islamic State group, which first formed in 2013 and conquered nearly a third of Iraq and neighboring Syria the next year.

    Iraqi and Kurdish forces, backed by a U.S.-led coalition, eventually rolled the group back on both sides of the border, regaining nearly all of the territory by the end of last year.

    Throughout the fighting, Iraq has pushed thousands of IS suspects through trials in counterterrorism courts. Trials witnessed by the AP and human rights groups often took no longer than 30 minutes.

    The vast majority were convicted under Iraq’s Terrorism Law, which has been criticized as overly broad.

    Asked about the process, Saad al-Hadithi, a government spokesman, said, “The government is intent that every criminal and terrorist receive just punishment.”

    The largest concentration of those with IS-related convictions is in Nasiriyah Central Prison, about 200 miles (320 kilometers) southeast of Baghdad, a sprawling maximum-security complex housing more than 6,000 people accused of terrorism-related offenses.

    Cells designed to hold two prisoners now hold six, according to a prison official who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations. The official said overcrowding makes it difficult to segregate prisoners charged with terrorism and that an inadequate number of guards means IS members are openly promoting their ideology inside the prison.

    Though prisoners at Nasiriyah were banned last year from giving sermons and recruiting fellow inmates, the official said he still witnesses prisoners circulating extremist religious teachings.

    In wards holding mostly terror-related convicts, high-ranking IS members have banned prisoners from watching television. Many refuse to eat meat from the cafeteria, believing it hasn’t been prepared according to religious guidelines, the prison official said.

    The relative free rein for extremists is reminiscent of Bucca Prison, a now-closed facility that the U.S. military ran in southern Iraq in the 2000s.

    The facility proved a petri dish where militant detainees mingled — including the man who now leads the Islamic State group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who spent nearly five years there, joining with other militants who became prominent in the group.

    Iraqi officials say they have taken steps to prevent a repeat of the Bucca phenomenon.

    “We will never allow Bucca to happen again,” said an Interior Ministry officer overseeing the detention of IS suspects in the Mosul area, also speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

    “The Americans freed their captives; under Iraq, they will all receive the death penalty,” he said.

    Cellphone signal jammers are installed at prisons holding IS suspects. But in Nasiriyah, the prison official said inmates appear to remain in contact with the outside.

    He recounted how just days after a guard disciplined a senior IS member in the prison, the man threatened the guard’s family, listing the names and ages of his children.

    The imprisonments hit hard among Iraq’s Sunni Arab minority, threatening to worsen tensions with the Shiite-dominated government. The community was both the pool that IS drew recruits from and the population most brutally victimized by its rule.

    Mass incarcerations under former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki led to widespread resentment among Sunnis, helping fuel the growth of IS.

    The head of the International Red Cross, an organization that regularly visits prison and detention facilities in Iraq, warned that mass detentions often incite future cycles of violence.

    “It’s the tortures, the ill treatments, the continuous long-term bad conditions in detentions which have radicalized a lot of actors which we find again as armed actors on the battlefield,” ICRC President Peter Maurer said during a recent visit to Iraq.

    http://time.com/5208595/iraq-detentions-isis-suspects/
    In the Shadow of Your Wings
    1 A Prayer of David. Hear a just cause, O Lord; attend to my cry! Give ear to my prayer from lips free of deceit!

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