An Iraqi court sentences 40 men to death over the June 2014 massacre by jihadists of hundreds of military recruits in Tikrit, a statement says.
The central criminal court in Baghdad finds 40 of 47 defendants guilty of involvement in the “Speicher” massacre, named after the base near where the victims were captured before being executed.
“The court ordered the execution of 40 (people) convicted of involvement in the incident, while seven were released for lack of evidence,” the spokesman for Iraq’s judiciary, Abdel Sattar Bayraqdar, says in the statement.
An Iraqi Shiite fighter prays at a burial site believed to hold victims of a June 2014 massacre in which hundreds of army cadets were executed by the Islamic State group, in the city of Tikrit, on April 4, 2015. (AFP/AHMAD AL-RUBAYE)
He did not say how many were present at the trial and provided no details on each defendant’s involvement in the Speicher massacre, nor on the circumstances of their arrest.
Bayraqdar says the sentences were handed down in accordance with Article Four of Iraq’s anti-terrorism law, which states that anyone who perpetrates, incites, plans, finances or assists acts of terrorism will be sentenced to death.
— AFP
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