Top Iraqi criminal court sentences nine to death over 2014 Camp Speicher massacre

A top Iraqi court has handed down death sentences to roughly a dozen convicts involved in a June 2014 massacre by Daesh Takfiri terrorists at an air force camp in the country’s north-central province of Salahuddin.

The Central Criminal Court of Iraq passed the ruling against nine defendants on Sunday, after the court found sufficient evidence to criminalize them, Arabic-language Baghdad Today news website reported.

The report added that the convicts confessed to their involvement in the manslaughter as well as various acts of terror when Daesh was in control of Salahuddin.

On June 12, 2014, Daesh terrorists killed around 1,700 Iraqi air force cadets after kidnapping them from Camp Speicher, a former US base. There were reportedly around 4,000 unarmed cadets in the camp when it came under attack by Daesh militants.

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Following the abductions, the attackers took the victims to the complex of presidential palaces and killed them. The terrorists also threw some of the bodies into a river. 

The massacre was filmed by Daesh and broadcast on social media.

An investigation committee later revealed that 57 members of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party aided Daesh terrorists in the massacre.

On August 21, 2016, Iraqi judiciary officials hanged 36 men convicted of involvement in the carnage.

Tikrit was recaptured from Daesh in March 2015. During clean-up operations in the northern part of the city, Iraqi forces found the location of the 2014 carnage.

Iraq declared victory over Daesh in December 2017 after a three-year counter-terrorism military campaign.

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The terror outfit’s remnants, though, keep staging sporadic attacks across Iraq, attempting to regroup and unleash a new era of violence.

Daesh has intensified its terrorist attacks in Iraq since January 2020, when the United States assassinated top Iranian anti-terror commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy head of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), along with their companions in a drone strike authorized by former US president Donald Trump near Baghdad International Airport.

Iraqi security forces on Sunday launched a large-scale operation against Daesh terrorists in the northern province of Kirkuk, after an Iraqi policeman was killed and two others were injured in an attack.

Armed men staged an armed attack on a federal police checkpoint in Riyadh district, southwest of Kirkuk, an Iraqi officer said on condition of anonymity.

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The attackers fled the scene unscathed, the officer said, blaming Daesh for the attack.

Last month, the Iraqi army conducted a large-scale military operation against Daesh militants in the northern areas of Salahuddin province after an Iraqi army officer was killed in a bomb explosion in Tuz Khurmatu district of the same province.

Daesh terrorists have in recent months escalated their attacks, especially in the area between Kirkuk, Salahuddin, and Diyala provinces.

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