Iraq has sentenced another 14 people to death by hanging for their role in the brutal Islamic State bloodbath that left nearly 2,000 dead.
The bloodbath, one of the worst committed by the so-called Islamic State of Iraq, saw extremists basically kidnap Shiite cadets from Speicher’s army base, who were taking a military course, and execute them.
Although there is still no official death toll, ISIS itself estimated the number of men it killed there at 1,700 and others say it may have reached 3,000.
The Al-Rusafa Criminal Court in the capital Baghdad “handed down death sentences against 14 terrorist criminals for their involvement in the Camp Speicher bloodbath in 2014,” the judiciary said in a statement, specifying their nationalities.
The horrific main points of the bloodbath were filmed and broadcast in ISIS propaganda videos, with many heartbreaking clips showing teenagers begging for their lives.
Photos released after the bloodbath showed militants loading plainclothes captives onto trucks and forcing them to lie down in 3 shallow trenches with their hands tied.
One of the lone survivor, Ali, then 23, told Human Rights Watch that he was captured along with thousands of other men as they tried to flee along the main road from the Speicher military base.
Islamic State fighters took the men’s cellphones and took them to what Ali described as a palace compound.
He said he crammed into a shipping container for six hours with more than a hundred detainees before being taken elsewhere.
The men were covered and shot with a pistol, one after another. A small gap in his blindfold meant that he had noticed the guy next to him falling to the ground covered in blood, but he himself had not been touched.
He pretended to die until nightfall when he controlled escape to the banks of the river and spent 3 days surviving the undergrowth.
The 14 men have 30 days to appeal the sentence, and decrees authorizing executions must also be signed through the president.
In 2016, 36 men were hanged for their involvement in the massacre.
The UN Fact-Finding Team to Promote Accountability for Daesh/ISIS Crimes (UNITAD) said in June 2021 that there was “clear and convincing evidence” that the bloodbath “constituted a series of war crimes under foreign law. “
However, the trials that led to Iraq’s death sentence have been harshly criticized by human rights teams as fundamental assembly standards.
Amnesty International has condemned Iraq’s systematic use of the death penalty after past executions, saying its use is “deplorable in all circumstances, and appalling when implemented after grossly unfair trials marred by allegations of confessions extracted under torture, as is the case in Iraq. . “
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