Iraqi PM orders ‘immediate’ execution of all ‘terrorists condemned to death’
Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi has called for the
“immediate” execution of all convicted “terrorists” on death row after
the bodies of eight members of the country’s security forces thought to
have killed by ISIS were found earlier this week.
Abadi ordered “the immediate implementation of the fair punishment of
terrorists condemned to death whose sentences have passed the decisive
stage,” his office said in a statement Thursday.
Hundreds of prisoners have been sentenced to death by Iraqi courts since
Mosul and the surrounding area were reclaimed from ISIS, Reuters
reported in April.
“The statistics coming from the criminal courts show that 815 people
have gone on trial and that 212 were sentenced to death. A further 150
were sentenced to life in prison,” Judge Abdul-Sattar al-Birqdar, a
judiciary spokesman, told the news agency at the time.
“The vast majority of these rulings were against elements of the Islamic
State terrorist organisation who were proven to have committed crimes,
and came after public trials conducted in accordance with the law.
Defendants were afforded their rights,” Birqdar said.
Following the Prime Minister’s directive, Iraqi officials executed a
dozen ISIS members on Thursday, the statement from Abadi’s office added.
“Based on the direction of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, executions
were carried out on Thursday on 12 convicted terrorists who have
received final verdicts,” the statement read.
Iraqis carry the coffin of a victim who was kidnapped and then executed by Islamic state group in Karbala city, southern Iraq on Thursday.
FURQAN AL-AARAJI/EPA-EFE
The executions came a day after the bodies of eight Iraqi
security forces believed to have been killed by ISIS fighters were found
on Wednesday.
Amaq, the terror group’s media wing, released a short video Saturday
showing six men being held hostage by gunmen, and demanded the release
of ISIS female prisoners and leaders from Iraqi jails. In a separate
Amaq statement ISIS said they were holding eight men hostage.
The militants in the video gave the Iraqi government a three-day
deadline to release the ISIS prisoners and threatened to kill the
hostages if their demands were not met.
The killings sparked anger among ordinary Iraqi people, who blamed the government for failing to act quickly.
Abadi visited the headquarters of the Joint Operations Command on Thursday, where he promised swift revenge for the killings.
“This is a very important meeting, first of all we give our condolences
to the families of the victims and we give another promise today that we
will arrest or kill them, this is a promise ” Abadi said.
The Iraqi PM said early forensic reports indicated the hostages had been
killed nearly a week ago, suggesting ISIS lied about the three-day
deadline.
ISIS militant groups are still capable of carrying attacks against Iraqi
forces and civilians even though Abadi officially declared full
liberation of Iraq from ISIS back in December.
Why the West might welcome Abadi’s mighty message: Analysis by Nick Paton Walsh
The tit-for-tat nature of these killings – even though a
state executing convicted terrorists can’t be equivocated with
terrorists murdering hostages – is an uncomfortable reminder of how the
sectarian Sunni-Shia loathing at the heart of the rise of ISIS hasn’t
disappeared along with the terror group’s physical “Caliphate.” The
Iraqi government’s security force has a strong Shia element to it and
ISIS has always been the ugly voice of disenfranchised Iraqi Sunnis.
Iraq has managed to steer itself reasonably carefully away from an
exclusively sectarian outcome to the fight against ISIS. Abadi has clung
to the idea of calming sectarian tensions as the best tool to defeat
the radicals of ISIS, and looks set to retain power with the help of a
powerful Shia – yet Iraqi nationalist – cleric Muqtada al Sadr.
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