Baghdad airport attackers sentenced to life imprisonment

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) - An Iraqi court has sentenced four people to life imprisonment for firing missiles at Baghdad airport earlier this year that caused material damage to two planes belonging to Iraqi Airways, as announced by the Iraqi Supreme Judicial Council on Sunday.

"The Karkh Criminal Court issued a life sentence against four criminals who participated in the crime of targeting Baghdad airport with missiles in January," said a statement issued by the Supreme Judicial Council.

The ruling was issued based on Article 4 of the Iraqi Anti-Terrorism Law.

This is the first ruling issued in cases related to attacks on the airport and sites that include American interests in Iraq or where forces from the international coalition to combat ISIS is present.

The ruling relates to an attack on Baghdad International Airport in January, which caused material damage to a runway and two empty planes on the airport grounds, as the Iraqi Civil Aviation Authority reported at the time.

Dozens of missile or drone attacks have targeted Iraqi military bases that include forces from the international coalition, or the vicinity of the US embassy in Baghdad, since the assassination of the head of the Quds Force in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Qassem Soleimani, and the deputy head of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, in January in an American air strike near Baghdad airport.