Nasiriyah: Iraqi authorities have executed eight people convicted of “terrorism” over links to the Daesh group, a security source in the country’s southern Dhi Qar province said Friday.
The source told AFP that eight Iraqis “convicted of terrorism and of being members of the Daesh group were executed by hanging” Thursday at Al-Hut prison in the city of Nasiriyah “under the supervision of a justice ministry team.”
A local medical source confirmed that the health department had received the bodies of eight executed people.
Under Iraqi law, terrorism and murder offenses are punishable by death, and execution decrees must be signed by the president.
The eight Iraqis were hanged “under Article 4 of the anti-terrorism law,” the security source said, requesting anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.
On May 6, Iraqi authorities executed by hanging 11 people convicted of “terrorism,” security and health sources told AFP. It was the second such group put to death since late April.
The execution on April 22 of 11 people sparked concern among rights groups, with Amnesty International condemning an “alarming lack of transparency.”
Al-Hut is a notorious prison in Nasiriyah whose Arabic name means “the whale,” because Iraqis believe that those jailed there never walk out alive.
Iraqi courts have handed down hundreds of death and life sentences in recent years for people convicted of membership in a “terrorist group,” an offense that carries the death penalty regardless of whether the defendant had been an active fighter.
Iraq hangs 8 convicted of ‘terrorism’: security, health sources
https://arab.news/64a6m
Iraq hangs 8 convicted of ‘terrorism’: security, health sources
- Eight Iraqis were convicted of terrorism and of being members of the Daesh group were executed by hanging
- Under Iraqi law all terrorism and murder offenses are punishable by death
Syria’s leader set to visit Berlin with deportations in focus
- Sharaa is scheduled to meet his counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German president’s office said
BERLIN: Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa is expected in Berlin on Tuesday for talks, as German officials seek to step up deportations of Syrians, despite unease about continued instability in their homeland.
Sharaa is scheduled to meet his counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German president’s office said.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s office has yet to announce whether he would also hold talks with Sharaa during the visit.
Since ousting Syria’s longtime leader Bashar Assad in late 2024, Sharaa has made frequent overseas trips as the former Islamist rebel chief undergoes a rapid reinvention.
He has made official visits to the United States and France, and a series of international sanctions on Syria have been lifted.
The focus of next week’s visit for the German government will be on stepping up repatriations of Syrians, a priority for Merz’s conservative-led coalition since Assad was toppled.
Roughly one million Syrians fled to Germany in recent years, many of them arriving in 2015-16 to escape the civil war.
In November Merz, who fears being outflanked by the far-right AfD party on immigration, insisted there was “no longer any reason” for Syrians who fled the war to seek asylum in Germany.
“For those who refuse to return to their country, we can of course expel them,” he said.
- ‘Dramatic situation’ -
In December, Germany carried out its first deportation of a Syrian since the civil war erupted in 2011, flying a man convicted of crimes to Damascus.
But rights groups have criticized such efforts, citing continued instability in Syria and evidence of rights abuses.
Violence between the government and minority groups has repeatedly flared in multi-confessional Syria since Sharaa came to power, including recent clashes between the army and Kurdish forces.
Several NGOs, including those representing the Kurdish and Alawite Syrian communities in Germany, have urged Berlin to axe Sharaa’s planned visit, labelling it “totally unacceptable.”
“The situation in Syria is dramatic. Civilians are being persecuted solely on the basis of their ethnic or religious affiliation,” they said in a joint statement.
“It is incomprehensible to us and legally and morally unacceptable that the German government knowingly intends to receive a person suspected of being responsible for these acts at the chancellery.”
The Kurdish Community of Germany, among the signatories of that statement, also filed a complaint with German prosecutors in November, accusing Sharaa of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.
There have also been voices urging caution within government.
On a trip to Damascus in October, Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said that the potential for Syrians to return was “very limited” since the war had destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure.
But his comments triggered a backlash from his own conservative Christian Democratic Union party.
