Thursday, May 17, 2007
Iraq court to try Al Qaeda leader accused of 800 bombings
Crime
(AFP) - An Al Qaeda leader accused of orchestrating 800 to 900 bombings in and around Baghdad will be tried by an Iraqi court, the US military said Wednesday. Omar Wahdallah Dad, also known as Abu Nur and "The Spider," will "face Iraqi justice in the Iraqi legal system," said US military spokesman Major General William Caldwell at a press conference.
Abu Nur, believed by the US military to have been one of Al Qaeda's senior commanders in Baghdad, "has admitted to having a role in between 800 to 900 car and roadside bomb attacks," Caldwell said. Abu Nur will be tried for violating Iraq's anti-terrorism law and could therefore face the death penalty.
The US military accuses Abu Nur of heading a car bomb network responsible for some of the most spectacular bombings that have rocked the capital in recent months, including an attack on the Shiite slum of Sadr City in November 2006. In that attack, considered the worst on Baghdad since the war to oust Saddam Hussein in 2003, a series of blasts killed at least 202 people. "He has admitted to playing a part in the horrific bombings in the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad November 23 of last year and he has also admitted to his responsibility in the kidnapping and murder of four Russian diplomats in June 2006," Caldwell said.
According to the charges brought against him Abu Nur personally beheaded two of the diplomats after which his insurgent group circulated a video of the act on the Internet. "Abu Nur has claimed that Al Qaeda targets everybody. He claims there are not any innocent people," Caldwell said. US forces arrested Abu Nur north of Baghdad in December. He is still in US custody.
Labels: Abu Nur, car bomb networks, court, death penalty, Omar Wahdallah Dad, Russian diplomats, Sadr City
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Iraqi soldiers who desert to get death penalty
Security
(Azzaman) - Iraqi soldiers who desert their units now face execution, according to a decree by the country’s Presidential Council. The offense is the latest of nearly 200 others convicted Iraqis are to be punished with death penalty. The council slapped three-year imprisonment on absentee soldiers.
The harsh penalties come following reports of large-scale desertion from army ranks in the wake of the latest surge in rebel attacks against U.S. and Iraqi forces. The penalties are also applicable to the cadets of military academies in the country. Turning desertion into an offense punishable by death comes amid mounting criticism from human rights groups that Iraq has become one of the world’s highest users of death penalty.
Amnesty International, for example, says that more than 100 people have been hanged since mid-2004 after unfair trials and 270 others are on the death row.
The harsh penalties come following reports of large-scale desertion from army ranks in the wake of the latest surge in rebel attacks against U.S. and Iraqi forces. The penalties are also applicable to the cadets of military academies in the country. Turning desertion into an offense punishable by death comes amid mounting criticism from human rights groups that Iraq has become one of the world’s highest users of death penalty.
Amnesty International, for example, says that more than 100 people have been hanged since mid-2004 after unfair trials and 270 others are on the death row.
Labels: death penalty, desertion, execution, Iraqi soldiers, Presidential Council
Friday, April 20, 2007
Amnesty - Iraq has fourth highest rate of executions worldwide
Humanitarian
(Reuters) - Iraq's use of the death penalty has risen rapidly since it was reinstated in mid-2004 and it now ranks as the country with the fourth-highest rate of executions in the world, Amnesty International said on Friday. The London-based human rights group said in a report that Iraq had sentenced more than 270 people to death since sovereignty was handed back to the Iraqis by the Americans in mid-2004. Of those, at least 100 have so far been executed.
"Iraq now figures among the countries with the highest numbers of executions reported in 2006," the group said. "Higher totals were recorded only in China, Iran and Pakistan." Among those to have been executed are former president Saddam Hussein and three of his closest advisers who were convicted last year of crimes against humanity for their part in scores of deaths in the 1980s. But beyond those high-profile executions, which Amnesty said took place after a trial that "failed to meet international fair trial standards", the rights group said it was also concerned about lower-key cases in the Iraqi Central Criminal Court.
Death sentences are frequently handed down after very brief trials in which defendants are poorly represented, seldom allowed to give evidence and are often tortured into making confessions that are then used against them. "The restoration of the death penalty in Iraq and its extension to additional crimes was a grave and retrograde step," Amnesty said. "More than this, it was a grievously short-sighted development, one that has contributed to, rather than helped alleviate, the continuing crisis in Iraq." The group urged Iraq to introduce a moratorium on executions and abolish the death penalty, which is opposed by the European Union and the United Nations but remains common in the United States.
"Iraq now figures among the countries with the highest numbers of executions reported in 2006," the group said. "Higher totals were recorded only in China, Iran and Pakistan." Among those to have been executed are former president Saddam Hussein and three of his closest advisers who were convicted last year of crimes against humanity for their part in scores of deaths in the 1980s. But beyond those high-profile executions, which Amnesty said took place after a trial that "failed to meet international fair trial standards", the rights group said it was also concerned about lower-key cases in the Iraqi Central Criminal Court.
Death sentences are frequently handed down after very brief trials in which defendants are poorly represented, seldom allowed to give evidence and are often tortured into making confessions that are then used against them. "The restoration of the death penalty in Iraq and its extension to additional crimes was a grave and retrograde step," Amnesty said. "More than this, it was a grievously short-sighted development, one that has contributed to, rather than helped alleviate, the continuing crisis in Iraq." The group urged Iraq to introduce a moratorium on executions and abolish the death penalty, which is opposed by the European Union and the United Nations but remains common in the United States.
Labels: Amnesty International, death penalty, executions
