Engineer in Iraq sentenced to death for helping IS create chemical weapons

An Iraqi court in Baghdad on Sunday handed a death sentence to an engineer accused of working with the Islamic State (IS) to create chemical weapons.

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) – An Iraqi court in Baghdad on Sunday handed a death sentence to an engineer accused of working with the Islamic State (IS) to create chemical weapons.

In an official statement after the sentence, Abdul Sattar Berqdar, the spokesperson for Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council, said the unnamed engineer had confessed to his crimes.

The convict had “helped with the development of chemical weapons for IS,” providing his own “incubation project facilities to the extremist group,” Berqdar said.

The court “issued a death sentence against an accused who works as an engineer who helped [IS] in the manufacture and development of chemical weapons and missiles,” he added.

The engineer was given the death sentence based on Article 4 of Iraq’s counter-terrorism law, the spokesperson noted.

IS has used chemical weapons to defend against the advancing Kurdish and Iraqi security forces in the past.

On Aug. 8, an Iraqi court handed death sentences to 27 IS members for their role in the murder of about 1,700 Iraqi soldiers based at the US base of Camp Speicher in 2014.

During their rise in 2014, the militant group stormed the camp and tricked the prisoners into thinking they would be reunited with their families.

The Iraqi troops were rounded up and taken to a riverbank where they were lined up and shot dead from close range before being buried in mass graves.

For nearly 10 months, the fate of the soldiers was unknown until the graves were discovered in the area.

Human rights activists have criticized the decision to enforce the death penalty, claiming defendants are not given proper legal representation.