Iraq ratifies death penalty for convicts in Speicher massacre

By Ibrahim Salih

BAGHDAD

Iraqi President Fuad Masum on Sunday ratified the death sentences of 36 people in connection with the 2014 mass killing of hundreds of Iraqi air force cadets by Daesh militants in northern Iraq.

In a Sunday statement, the Iraqi Presidency said Masum has “approved all the death sentences handed down in the crime of the Speicher Camp”.

On June 12, 2014, Daesh terrorist group seized the northern city of Tikrit and posted a video purporting to show the mass killing of hundreds of security officers and military students. The officers were alleged to be affiliated to the Speicher base.

The Iraqi Ministry of Human Rights said the number of those murdered was 2,398.

Last week, an Iraqi court sentenced 36 people to death in connection with the mass killings and sent the verdicts to the Iraqi president for approval.

Iraq has plunged into a security vacuum since June 2014, when Daesh stormed the northern city of Mosul and declared what it calls a caliphate in Iraq and Syria.