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Thread: Iraq Capital Punishment News

  1. #21
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    Iraq stays execution of man allegedly held at 16

    Iraq has suspended the execution of a Yemeni prisoner whose family claims was 16 years old when he was taken into custody, an Iraqi official and human rights advocates said Wednesday. Iraqi officials dispute that he was a minor at the time of his arrest.

    Human Rights Watch earlier this week urged authorities in Baghdad to stay the execution of Saleh Moussa Ahmed al-Baidany. The group said his execution would have been Iraq's first in 25 years of someone who was a minor when detained.

    Al-Baidany was picked up by the U.S. military in August 2009 along the Iraq-Syria border, his father told the advocacy group. He was later handed over to Iraqi authorities, found guilty of terrorist activities and sentenced to death.

    The advocacy group's Iraq researcher, Erin Evers, said the sentence has now been postponed, although al-Baidany remains detained on death row and his fate is uncertain.

    "We're still extremely concerned about his position," she said. "Nobody's made any promises."

    Iraqi Deputy Justice Minister Busho Ibrahim confirmed that al-Baidany's execution has been halted until further notice following an intervention by Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari. Ibrahim disputed claims by the Yemeni's family that he was a minor at the time of his arrest.

    Al-Baidany was carrying no documents showing his age when he was detained, so authorities turned to a forensic medical committee to figure out how old he was, Ibrahim said. It determined he was born in 1987, making him about 22 years old at the time of his capture.

    Supreme Judicial Council spokesman Abdul-Sattar Bayrkdar had no details on the case. Under Iraqi law, someone arrested at age 16 would not be subject to the death penalty, he said.

    The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad had no immediate comment.

    The Yemeni man's father, Moussa al-Baidany, told the rights group his son was 16 when he was detained and said he has a birth certificate to prove it.

    In a phone interview from Yemen, he said the family remains worried about the detained man's fate. The younger al-Baidany had been living with his grandmother before making his way to Iraq.

    "My son was still young and had no experience in this life, and his travelling to Iraq was the wrong thing to do," he said. "I hope the Iraqi government shows mercy."

    Iraqi authorities this week also halted the execution of a Libyan man whose case was highlighted by Human Rights Watch, al-Baidany said. The group had said it was concerned that Iraq would put Adel Shalani to death without disclosing details about the case.

    Iraq has executed 129 people so far this year, an increase over previous years. Most of those sentenced to death were convicted in terrorism-related cases.

    International observers have raised concerns about the fairness of the legal process and the possibility that some of the verdicts were politically motivated, including death sentences issued against the country's fugitive Sunni vice president, Tariq al-Hashemi.

    Iraq continues to struggle with law and order nearly 10 years after the U.S.-led invasion. A suspected al-Qaida detainee tried to blow himself up inside a jail cell in Baghdad on Wednesday, wounding himself and six others, according to police officials.

    Prison authorities are investigating how the inmate, who was transferred to the facility a few days ago, managed to get the explosives belt inside the prison complex. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to reporters.

    In mid-2012, the same prison was the scene of a deadly shooting. An inmate using a smuggled gun shot two guards dead before killing himself.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-w...orts&ir=sports
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  2. #22
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    Iraqi inmates seize weapons, escape from prison

    A dozen prisoners including al-Qaida-linked death row inmates escaped from a prison near Baghdad on Friday, the latest sign that Iraq still struggles with basic law and order more than a year after American troops withdrew, officials said.

    The brazen prison break happened hours before thousands of mostly Sunni protesters rallied in the capital and other parts of the country, keeping pressure on the Iraqi government. Among the demands of the three-week wave of protests are the release of detainees held in Iraqi jails and changes to a tough counterterrorism law that Sunnis believe unfairly targets their sect.

    The prisoners managed to escape through windows in their cells early in the morning and then seized the weapons of guards manning two observation towers, according to a police official. He said all of the prisoners had been convicted on terrorism charges and that some were awaiting execution, but did not provide further details of the crimes they were alleged to commit nor give a specific number for how many escaped.

    A guard chief in Taji prison confirmed the account. He said a number of guards were arrested and are being questioned to see if they helped the prisoners escape. Security forces launched a manhunt to arrest the escapees. He and the police official agreed to discuss the incident on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk to media.

    Jailbreaks are not uncommon in Iraq. In September, scores of inmates escaped following clashes at a prison in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit that left 12 people, including 10 guards, dead. The government acknowledged the inmates in that escape had help from the inside.

    Meanwhile, several thousand demonstrators took to the streets for the third Friday in a row in the western province of Anbar and in other predominantly Sunni parts of the country.

    The protests began last month following the arrests of bodyguards assigned to Finance Minister Rafia al-Issawi, one of the central government's most senior Sunni officials. He has since become a rallying point for the demonstrators, who are angry over perceived second-class treatment by the Shiite-led government.

    Al-Issawi roused a crowd of several hundred people gathered at a Baghdad mosque after midday prayers Friday, saying the demonstrations "will be able to shake any throne."

    Without naming Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki or other officials directly, he warned that anyone who threatens the protesters could face the same downfall as Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president who was pushed from power by the Arab Spring protests in 2011.

    "If you want to stay out of prison after your term ends, do not stain yourselves with protesters' blood," he said. The rallies have for the most part been peaceful, and government forces have not tried to break them up.

    His address was frequently interrupted by chants from the crowd demanding the toppling of the government.

    Also in Baghdad, hundreds of protesters massed amid tight security measures in the courtyard of Abu Hanifa mosque after Friday prayer, demanding the release of detainees. In the northern city of Mosul, thousands of people held a demonstration to call upon authorities to stop what they say are random arrests against Sunnis.

    The rallies have grown into the largest and most sustained demonstration of Sunni discontent since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. They are raising fresh concerns that Iraq may be heading for new conflict between the country's Sunnis and the Shiite majority.

    Meanwhile, police said that gunmen in speeding car opened fire on a security checkpoint in northern Baghdad, killing three policemen and wounding two others.

    Sectarian tensions are a major driver of the violence that continues to plague Iraq, with Sunni extremists carrying out attacks mainly against Shiite targets in an effort to undermine the government's authority.

    http://seattletimes.com/html/nationw..._apmliraq.html
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  3. #23
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    Tareq Aziz to urge The Pope for a quick execution



    He’s been on death row for two years, convicted for unspeakable crimes whilst he was Saddam Hussein’s deputy. And now the lawyer representing Tareq Aziz say he wants a quick death. In fact he’s set to write to the Pope Benedict the 16thto ask him to speed up his execution. Because he’s currently suffering with with diabetes and heart disease.

    It’s the second time Aziz, who’s 76, has asked for a swift execution. Back in April 2011, his lawyer pleaded with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri-al-Maliki to set a date for his death.

    Lawyer Badie Aref told the AFP news agency that Aziz is in ‘total depression’ and he said "…I will call for him (The Pope) to end my misery, because I would prefer to be executed than stay in this condition."

    Many would agree with the convicted man’s sentiment. A judge delivered the death sentence for Aziz in 2010, after finding him guilty of deliberate murder and crimes against humanity during Saddam's regime. He was also accused of genocide against the Kurdish community and of persecuting Iraq's Shia population during his time in power.

    http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/politics-vi...execution.html
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  4. #24
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    Wichitan hopes to save nephew from execution in Iraq

    His nephew awaits execution in an Iraqi prison.

    Sometimes he has a nightmare that the execution already has taken place.

    Musadik Mahdi, a Wichita aerospace engineer, is doing all he can to save the life of his nephew, Osama Jamal ‘Abdallah Mahdi, but he doesn’t know how much time is left.

    His nephew is in a high-risk prison where executions can take place on a whim.

    “It could happen any minute,” Musadik Mahdi says.

    Osama Jamal ‘Abdallah Mahdi is a 32-year-old oil technician with a wife and two children. He was convicted of a crime he says he didn’t commit — the killing of an Iraqi army officer, who died Nov. 26, 2008, when an explosive device was planted in his car.

    Osama Jamal ‘Abdallah Mahdi wasn’t arrested until Jan. 15, 2010. He proclaimed his innocence, then was held for about eight months, during which he was reportedly tortured and coerced to confess, his uncle says.

    The torture included beating with sharp objects, kicking, being suspended by the arms with the arms pulled backward, and being wounded by a drill and electric shocks to various parts of his body while he was immersed in a barrel of water, Musadik Mahdi says.

    According to Amnesty International, a human-rights organization that has taken up Osama Jamal ‘Abdallah Mahdi’s cause and issued a report on the case, an examination by the Forensic Medical Institute on Nov. 14, 2010, found 20 discolored wounds in various shapes on his body, with their sizes varying from 11/2 to 5.3 centimeters.

    He was tried on Oct. 26, 2011. The trial lasted only one day.

    There were two government-paid “secret witnesses” against him, and the victim’s mother and sister, his uncle said. None of the witnesses saw the killing.

    A co-defendant, who also originally had proclaimed his innocence and later confessed under torture, then withdrew the confession, incriminated Osama Jamal ‘Abdallah Mahdi, and received a life sentence.

    At his trial, he tried to withdraw his confession, but the judge used it to deliver a sentence of death.

    Musadik Mahdi says his nephew’s boss at an oil refinery near the Green Zone in Baghdad provided proof that his nephew was at work at the time of the murder, but the court threw this evidence out. The judge also tossed aside the forensic report detailing his nephew’s injuries under torture.

    Osama Jamal ‘Abdallah Mahdi is being held in the Nasseriya Central Prison in the Dhi Qar governorate in southern Iraq.

    Musadik Mahdi had taken over the welfare of his nephew after his brother died of cancer in Iraq in 2010. His brother learned he had cancer about the same time Osama Jamal ‘Abdallah Mahdi was arrested, and spent the next year working on his son’s case rather than receiving medical treatment, Musadik Mahdi says.

    Mahdi says his nephew’s mother last saw her son about three months ago. The prison is far from her home. She said her son was in very bad shape. The prison forces inmates outside into the 100-degree sun, and starves them, Musadik Mahdi says.

    Osama Jamal ‘Adallah Mahdi not only lost his father to cancer while incarcerated, his mother has developed health issues due to stress over her son’s arrest, including high blood pressure and diabetes, Musadik Mahdi says.

    Mahdi says his nephew is very nice and wouldn’t hurt anyone. When his mother told him once that ants had invaded their home, Osama Jamal ‘Abdallah Mahdi didn’t want the ants to be killed.

    “Can you imagine someone like that planting a bomb in someone’s car?” Musadik Mahdi says. “He’s very calm, very quiet, and a very good kid.”

    His nephew had just bought a lot for a new home for his family, and wouldn’t have done anything to risk his future, his uncle says. Osama Jamal ‘Abdallah Mahdi’s wife and young sons, ages 3 to 5, shuffle for shelter among relatives in Iraq while he is in prison.

    Musadik Mahdi, 57, left Iraq in 1975 and has lived in Wichita for 22 years. He got out due to the corruption in Iraq, he says. He had hoped America’s involvement would produce democracy in his native country, but he has seen its court system become as corrupt as ever.

    The case of Mahdi’s nephew isn’t uncommon in Iraq.

    Carsten Jurgensen, a researcher for Amnesty International, says in an e-mail to The Eagle: “We have documented scores of cases of prisoners on death row who have been convicted after trials where international fair trial standards have been frequently and systematically violated. Many prisoners reported that they had been coerced to make self-incriminating statements in detention and have repudiated such ‘confessions’ at trials. However, Iraqi criminal courts have frequently accepted the ‘confessions’ as evidence despite their repudiation, and used them as a basis for a conviction.”

    Under Iraq law, a death sentence must be reviewed by a higher court, but that court may decide the case on a review of the court verdict and dossiers and is not required to re-examine the evidence, although it may if it thinks that’s required, according to Amnesty International.

    Once a death sentence has been confirmed by the court, it must be sent to the president to decide whether the defendant should be executed, have his sentence commuted to a lesser sentence, or be pardoned.

    Musadik Mahdi says neither of those extra steps required by law took place in his nephew’s case.

    Amnesty International says Iraq has a high rate of executions. Hundreds of prisoners are currently held on death row. A sharp rise in executions was recorded in Iraq in 2012, making it the country with the third-highest number of executions in the world. At least 129 people were executed in 2012, almost twice the known total for 2011, according to Amnesty International.

    During the first four months of 2013, at least 40 people were executed, the organization says.

    Jurgensen says Amnesty International will continue to appeal on Osama Jamal ‘Abdallah Mahdi’s behalf. Musadik Mahdi, who learned of the death sentence only three months ago, has tried to appeal to the Iraqi president, parliament, prime minister and human rights minister. It is frustrating because his e-mails often bounce back to him unread, or with messages saying they can’t help him, he says. He also has appealed to the U.N. Refugee Agency.

    Recently, he has contacted the offices of U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts and U.S. Rep. Mike Pompeo of Kansas in hopes that American officials still have some influence on the Iraqi government.

    Mahdi says he even tried to contact actress Angelina Jolie, who has connections in Iraq and has been active on behalf of prisoners in that country, but said he was rebuffed by one of her managers.

    His goal, he says, is to stop the execution, and get a new investigation into the killing of the army officer and a new trial for his nephew.

    Meanwhile, the ordeal has placed stress on Musadik Mahdi, who is married with three teenage children.

    “It’s very challenging,” he says. “I have hope now after I saw the Amnesty International report. I see the light at the end of the tunnel.”

    Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/2013/07/06/287...#storylink=cpy
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  5. #25
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    Saddam Hussein's brother dies in hospital while on death row

    Saddam Hussein’s half brother, facing the gallows for his role as chief of the regime’s security service, has died of cancer in a Baghdad hospital.

    Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan, who had received several death sentences, was transferred to the hospital from prison as his health deteriorated. His body will be handed over to his family.

    Al-Hassan had lived in exile for a period after the 2003 invasion, but was deported to Iraq by the Syrian government in 2005. He was suspected of directing and financing insurgency operations from Syria carried out by Saddam loyalists in Iraq.

    His photo appeared as the Six of Diamonds in decks of playing cards distributed featuring members of Saddam’s deposed regime. Al-Hassan was number 36 on the US list of the 55 most-wanted Iraqis at the time.

    Under Saddam, al-Hassan served as head of intelligence and security during the 1991 Gulf War. He then ran the general security service until 1996, when he took up his final post of presidential adviser to Saddam.

    His son, Ayman Sabawi Ibrahim, was arrested in Saddam’s hometown of Tikrit and was sentenced to life in prison, but escaped in northern Iraq in late 2006.

    Saddam was executed by hanging in December 2006.

    http://www.irishexaminer.com/breakin...ow-599835.html
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  6. #26
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    Baghdad's death row a 'slaughterhouse'

    EACH day Um Ahmad listens to the news for word of hangings. Thursday is Baghdad's usual hanging day. Sunday is the next favourite. On occasion, such as in October when 42 prisoners were executed in a 48-hour period, Tuesdays and Wednesdays are used to clear the backlog on Iraq's death row. So she is never quite sure, and stays at home, listening for word of the latest batch of executions, wondering if her only son, Ahmad, is among them.

    "I've been terrified since the last executions," the 59-year-old said of the latest group of hangings, which took this year's toll of judicial killings in Iraq to 170. "I know my son is already wearing the red uniform in Kadhimiya prison, death row, ready for execution. I don't know how much time is left."

    Execution days begin before dawn. Groups of Iraqi prisoners dressed in red overalls are led in shackles from their cells to the shadowy confines of the execution chamber in the maximum security prison at al-Kadhimiya, Baghdad. There, before the five noose gallows, they are hooded. Their hands and feet are tied. Then they are hanged, often in batches - a process called "obscene" by UN Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, who described it as "like processing animals in a slaughterhouse".

    Families of the condemned men are never informed in advance. They are called afterwards and told to collect the bodies from the morgue. "I have no way of telling when my son may die," said Um Ahmad, a Palestinian born in Iraq who declined to give her full name. "The authorities allow no final visit. The strain is terrible. I barely sleep at night."

    Her desperation is given particular acuteness by the documents she shuffles in her hands. One, signed by three judges at the Supreme Court in August 2009, notes there is not enough evidence to prove charges against her son, Ahmad Omar "Amr"'Abd al-Qadir, 31, and recommends his release. Another, signed a year earlier by the director-general of Baghdad's Medical Legal Institute, Munjid al-Rezali, confirms a selection of injuries on Mr Qadir's body supportive of claims that his confession, later withdrawn, was extracted by extensive torture.

    By most normal measures of justice, Mr Qadir might have already been freed, or at least had his sentence commuted. However, in today's Iraq, vengeful and violent - third only behind China and Iran for its number of executions - torture, forced confession, bribery and corruption are the hallmarks of a crumbling judicial system. With increasing frequency, innocent and guilty alike are railroaded through a process that for many may end only with the snap of the gallows trap door.

    Most of those on death row have been charged under Article 4 of Iraq's contentious Anti-Terror Law, which allows for the execution not just of killers but also of any person "who incites, plans, finances, or assists terrorists". The Shia-majority government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki insists Article 4 is a bulwark of its effort against a terrorist campaign that has caused the deaths of more than 7000 Iraqis this year. Sunni communities who bear the brunt of mass arrests allege it is a tool used in their persecution.

    Mr Qadir was sentenced to death under Article 4 in May this year for being an accessory to the murder of a policeman in Baghdad in July 2006. The officer was shot on the day of Mr Qadir's engagement by the driver of a car who had taken him to buy a cake for the celebration party. The case file against him is a muddle of contradictory police witness accounts. Mr Qadir, who was not in the vehicle at the time, claims the driver, a fellow Sunni, became embroiled in a sectarian shoot-out with a group of Shia policemen whom he believed were about to kill him. The police allege Mr Qadir was part of a bomb team. There is enough doubt over his guilt to have attracted the attention of Amnesty International, which demanded in October that his death sentence be overturned and he be granted a retrial. Instead, he has been moved to death row, his last hope of retrial denied just a fortnight ago. He may be hanged this week.

    "Thousands of people have been arrested and charged under Article 4," said Muneer Haddad, a former judge who has since become a defence lawyer and represents an average of 12 men a month, most of them Sunni, on terrorism charges.

    "Mostly, Article 4 is used against Sunnis," he continued, a short-barrel 9mm pistol laying on the table in front of him as protection against assassins. "But it targets some Shia groups too: anyone opposed to Maliki. Article 4 has become a tool for political elimination and revenge."

    Confession has become the foundation block of the prosecutors' cases, and is often enough to convict a prisoner regardless of the absence of corroborating evidence. The Ministry of Interior parades prisoners on national TV to confess, uploading the footage on to its website, before they have even reached the court.

    In a retributive society already suffering an average of 900 violent killings a month, these televised confessions are seen as a sop to public outrage at terror attacks. Few Iraqis are against capital punishment. However, the injustices of the current system only provoke violent reaction, and bear sickening similarities to the era of Saddam Hussein.

    Torture remains an ingrained practice used by Iraqi investigators to extract confessions. "I'd say that not less than 30 per cent of the prisoners examined here have signs of torture," said Dr Rezali. "There may be more, but in general investigators only allow prisoners to be checked here long after there are no more signs of their torture."

    Dr Rezali also spoke with a pistol lying on his table, having arrived at work with a cortege of bodyguards. His caseload makes him the subject of repeated death threats. On average his staff examine 20 prisoners a day at the MLI, sent there by defence lawyers to check for signs of torture.

    "Sometimes we see burns, often bruising," he said. "Dislocated shoulders are common after prisoners, hands chained behind them, have been hung from the ceiling. We also see rectal damage, tears and bruising, due to rape, sometimes using bottles."

    Mr Qadir retracted his confession in court, though it was cited when he was sentenced to death. There is little doubt he had been savagely tortured. Weeks after his initial arrest, US troops searching an Iraqi "Wolf Brigade" detention facility were so appalled by Mr Qadir's injuries - he could barely walk, appeared to have drill injuries to his left knee and elbow, and had been burnt - that they hospitalised him for nearly five months in a US medical facility, before returning him to the Iraqi authorities. Dr Rezali's examination, conducted more than two years later, nevertheless noted legacy injuries to his knee, elbow, head and arm.

    Yet none of this, nor the $US50,000 spent by his mother on lawyers and bribes to police officials for access to her son, seems enough to prevent his inexorable path to the noose. Moreover, the one effective lawyer employed by his mother, a woman named Suhaad al-Khafaji, was assassinated in 2011. Mr Qadir was sentenced to death soon afterwards.

    "I've sold everything to save my son," sighed Um Ahmad. "Our shop, my house, my gold, my furniture. I'm in debt and there is nothing more I can do. I have only my son's life left."

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news...1226780109883#
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  7. #27
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    Judge who sentenced Saddam Hussein to death 'is captured and executed by ISIS'

    The judge who sentenced former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to death has been captured and executed by ISIS militants, it is claimed.

    Raouf Abdul Rahman, who sentenced the dictator to death by hanging in 2006, was reportedly killed by rebels in retaliation for the execution of the 69-year-old.

    His death has not been confirmed by the Iraqi government, but officials had not denied reports of his capture last week.

    He is believed to have been arrested on June 16, and died 2 days later.

    Jordanian MP Khalil Attieh wrote on his Facebook page that Judge Rahman, who had headed the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal during Saddam's trial, had been arrested and sentenced to death.

    'Iraqi revolutionaries arrested him and sentenced him to death in retaliation for the death of the martyr Saddam Hussein,' he said, according to Al-Mesyroon.

    Attieh also said that Judge Rahman had unsuccessfully attempted to escape from Baghdad disguised in a dancer's costume.

    The Facebook page for Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, Saddam's former deputy who has emerged as a key figure among the Sunni militants, also posted that the rebels had been able to arrest Judge Rahman.

    Judge Rahmann, who was born in the Kurdish town of Halabja, took over midway through the trial in January 2006 after previous judge Rizgar Amin was criticised for being too lenient in his dealings with Hussein and his co-defendants.

    The father of 3 had graduated from Baghdad University's law school in 1963 and worked as a lawyer before he was appointed as the chief judge of the Kurdistan Appeals Court in 1996.

    He oversaw Saddam's trial for crimes against humanity over the killing of 148 people in the town of Dujail following an assassination attempt in 1982, and sentenced him to death by hanging following the guilty verdict.

    Judge Rahman had faced claims that he was biased as his home town had been the subject of a poison gas attack in 1988, allegedly ordered by Hussein.

    A number of Judge Rahman's relatives were among the 5,000 people killed in the attack, and during the 1980s he was also reportedly detained and tortured by Saddam's security agents.

    The judge later criticised the way the execution was carried out in December 2006, saying in 2008 that it should not have been carried out in public and branding it 'uncivilised and backward'.

    The hanging had taken place as Sunni Muslims were celebrating the religious festival Eid al-Adha, and a video of the execution showed the former leader being taunted by members of the Shi'ite group.

    In March 2007 it was reported that Judge Rahman had applied for asylum in Britain after travelling to the UK with his family on a tourist visa, claiming he feared for his life.

    He never commented on the claims, which were denied by the Iraqi High Criminal Court Tribunal which said he had merely been in the UK for a holiday.

    (source: Zaman Alwsl)
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  8. #28
    Senior Member CnCP Addict Stro07's Avatar
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    Iraqi court sentences 24 men to death over massacre near Tikrit

    A Baghdad court sentenced 24 men to death by hanging Wednesday over a June 2014 massacre committed by militants near the Iraqi city of Tikrit, said a spokesman for the Supreme Judicial Council.

    Four others were acquitted, the spokesman, Abdul Sattar Bayrakdar, said in a statement released by his office.

    ISIS claimed to have executed hundreds of recruits and soldiers captured last year outside Camp Speicher, a fortified Iraqi base near Tikrit.

    Mass grave sites were uncovered when Iraqi soldiers and Shiite militias seized Tikrit, the hometown of former President Saddam Hussein, from ISIS fighters this year.

    Bayrakdar said sufficient evidence had been presented for the court to convict, "including the confessions of the defendants in the investigation phase, which matched the facts and the records of forensic evidence."

    The statement did not give details of who the men were, when they were arrested or whether they were affiliated with ISIS.

    In the past few months, Iraqi security forces have detained dozens of people accused of having links to the massacre, mostly from Salaheddin province.

    Human Rights Watch described the "Speicher Massacre" -- as it has been dubbed in Iraq -- as the "largest reported incident" where "ISIS captured more than 1,000 soldiers fleeing Camp Speicher ... then summarily executed at least 800 of them."

    Based on satellite imagery and witness testimony, the rights group last year was able to identity a number of mass grave sites inside Tikrit and the presidential palace complex.

    The palace complex became ISIS' headquarters after the militants occupied Tikrit. Nine months later, Iraqi soldiers and Shiite militias retook the city after a fierce battle.

    The missing soldiers' families gave DNA samples to the Iraqi Ministry of Health last year so authorities would be able to match them to unidentified bodies the government might find.

    Many questions remain unanswered about what happened last June and how hundreds and perhaps more than 1,000 Iraqi soldiers ended up in the hands of ISIS.

    http://edition.cnn.com/2015/07/08/mi...cre/index.html

  9. #29
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Protests at Sadr City, Iraq Demanding Execution of 300 Terror Convicts

    Baghdad-Hundreds of Iraqi citizens organized on Monday dawn an open protest which marched at the Talibiya area near Sadr city entrance, Iraq.

    Main streets were cut off, slogans and banners were raised in demand of authorities serving 300 convicted terrorists to capital punishment.

    Felons convicted of terror acts, punishable by death according to Iraqi law, are estimated to be hundreds among an original three thousand who have been officially arrested. Despite receiving verdict, many death sentences await implementation.

    Demonstrations came as a public response to authorities throwing back and forth different accusations as to which party is responsible for the delay in the delivery of the sentences.

    What is more is that the Iraqi parliament is scheduled to have its first newfound legislation session, as to discuss the delay in implementation of death sentences and to issue official decrees relating to the heated subject. The parliamentary session is expected to hold Iraqi President Fuad Masum responsible for the hold up of executions.

    Khalid Shwani, the official spokesman of Iraqi president, told Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper that Iraqi presidency does not desire to put any of the executions on hold– as to the evident delay, he explained that it is relative to constitutional procedures.

    Shwani added that President Masum had authorized all findings regarding the death sentences and then redirected documents to the government, being it the party responsible for implementation.

    Nonetheless, Iraqi law dictates that convicts receiving capital punishment are permitted to push forward for an appeal hence the delay, Spokesman Shwani added.

    Shwani further defended Iraqi presidency citing national constitution, and that judicial authorities process thousands of case files concerning terrorists and those facing capital punishment.

    Finally he added that the Iraqi government will be given directions as to lay facts concerning the cases before the public as to grant Iraqis access to judicial proceedings with full transparency.

    http://english.aawsat.com/2016/07/ar...error-convicts
    "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

  10. #30
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    Rise in Iraqi execution of Islamist militants could bring injustices: U.N.

    The United Nations said on Monday Iraqi government efforts to speed up execution of Islamic State militants following a Baghdad bomb attack that killed 324 people could result in innocent people being put to death.

    "(It is) all too easy to permit such atrocities to stoke the fires of vengeance. But vengeance is not justice," U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussien said in a statement.

    Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, facing pressure following the Baghdad suicide bombing last month claimed by Islamic State, ordered an investigation into delays in executing prisoners found guilty of terrorism-related charges.

    "Given the weaknesses of the Iraqi justice system, and the current environment in Iraq, I am gravely concerned that innocent people have been and may continue to be convicted and executed, resulting in gross, irreversible miscarriages of justice," Zeid said.

    The statement said U.N. monitoring has revealed "a consistent failure to respect due process and fair trial standards, including a reliance on torture to extract confessions."

    Efforts to speed up executions emerged after the July 3 bombing, one of the biggest such attacks in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 which toppled Saddam Hussein and sparked years of attacks by Sunni jihadists and Shi'ite Muslim armed groups.

    Iraq's Justice Ministry announced days later that 45 death sentences had been carried out since the beginning of the year.

    An estimated 1,200 are on death row, including possibly hundreds who have exhausted appeals processes and have received the final decree of the president, the U.N. statement said.

    Islamic State has lost at least half its territory in Iraq to an array of U.S.-backed government forces and Iranian-backed Shi'ite militias, but the Baghdad bombing showed it can still strike inside the heart of the capital.

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/rise-iraq...124538531.html
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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