Iraq begins execution of death row inmates, starts with 12 in response to IS killings

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Iraqi government has begun executing condemned terrorists whose appeals have been exhausted, started with twelve overnight, in response to the kidnapping and killing of six members of the security forces. 

“Based on the directive of the Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, twelve convicted terrorists whose sentences had passed the decisive stage were executed on Thursday,” read the statement the Prime Minister’s office released on Friday.

The swift executions were carried out after Abadi ordered “just retribution” against those on death row on terrorism charges – notably Islamic State (IS) members – after six members of the Iraqi security forces were kidnapped and killed after a three-day deadline for the release of Sunni female prisoners was passed.

There are some 300 people on Iraq’s death row, 100 of them foreign nationals who were convicted of affiliation to a terrorist group. The move, while popular among Iraqis, is likely to raise concerns among international and local rights groups.

Baghdad earlier this week had rejected demands by IS to release Sunni female prisoners. The six hostages, who were forced to identify themselves as policemen and militia fighters in what is one of the only videos IS released since its defeat in Iraq late last year.

Brigadier-General Yahya Rasool, a spokesperson for the Iraqi army’s Joint Operations Command (JOC), on Monday said he had seen the IS video, released on June 23, and stressed authorities were working on finding the location of the hostages.

Efforts to rescue the men, however, ultimately failed, after Iraqi security forces found the captives’ bodies, dismembered and dumped by the roadside on Wednesday in Salahuddin Province’s Tuz Khurmatu district.

Following news of the discovery of the corpses, the Iraqi Prime Minister promised to avenge the deaths of the IS hostages.

“Our security and military forces will take forceful revenge against these terrorist cells,” Abadi told senior military officials and ministers, according to Al Jazeera. “We promise that we will kill or arrest those who committed this crime.”

Baghdad is currently conducting trials for hundreds of foreign women and children who have been detained by Iraqi troops during military operations to liberate the country from the grip of the militants over the past year.

Following the emergence of the extremist group in Iraq and Syria in 2014, thousands of foreign nationals joined IS. Accompanying them were women and children who came from different parts of the world.

According to Iraq’s counterterrorism law, aiding or membership in the extremist group carries the penalty of life in prison or death.

Despite Abadi himself declaring a “final victory” over IS last December, the group continues to carry out random bombings, assassinations, and kidnappings in previously liberated areas and in disputed areas where the security situation has significantly deteriorated since the forced withdrawal of Kurdish Peshmerga forces in October last year.

Editing by Nadia Riva