Iraq hangs 36 IS members convicted of Speicher Massacre

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) – The Iraqi Justice Ministry announced on Sunday that 36 members of the Islamic State (IS) had been hanged for their involvement in a massacre that took place in 2014 in Salahaddin Province.

In an announcement, the Iraqi Justice Ministry stated that the 36 IS convicts responsible for the “Speicher Massacre” had been hanged.

The verdict took place in Nasiriyah prison after the President of Iraq Fuad Masoum signed and approved the death penalties.

Masoum’s media office announced on Aug. 14 that the president had approved all the death penalty sentences handed out to the IS convicts involved in the Speicher Massacre.

Moreover, the decision had been previously ratified by the Iraqi Justice Ministry.

On June 12, 2014, IS militants captured the northern city of Tikrit in Salahaddin Province.

Following the seizure of the city, the group posted a video displaying the mass killing of hundreds of Iraqi security officers and military students.

The execution was later labeled as the Speicher Massacre because it took place in Camp Speicher, officially known as the Tikrit Air Academy.

According to the Iraqi Ministry of Human rights, the number of officers and soldiers executed in the massacre was 2,398.

In June 2014, IS took control of Mosul, the second-largest city in the north of Iraq.

The insurgents began to expand in the country by occupying large swaths of territory in Nineveh, Diyala, Salahaddin and Anbar.

However, the group has currently lost over 50 percent of the occupied territory, according to the US Presidential Special Envoy Brett McGurk.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany