Cairo: A court in Iraq has sentenced to death 14 more convicts in the 2014 massacre at the Majid al Tamimi Airbase, formerly known as Camp Speicher, near the city of Tikrit in the northern Saladin province, the Supreme Judicial Council said on Thursday.
“The Central Criminal Court … sentenced 14 terrorist criminals to death for participating in the 2014 Speicher massacre,” the council said in a statement.
The massacre at the Speicher airbase took place in June 2014 after its capture by militants of the Islamic State terrorist group (IS, banned in Russia). According to various estimates, IS militants killed about 1,700 Iraqi soldiers, whose bodies were later found in mass graves near the base. In August 2016, Iraqi Justice Minister Haidar Al Zamily announced the execution of 36 convicts in the massacre case. An Iraqi court later sentenced another 27 convicts in the case to death.
Despite Iraq proclaiming victory over the IS in 2017, the Iraqi army, supported by the people’s militia and the international coalition, has continued fighting the remaining “sleeper cells” of terror groups in certain areas.
UNI/SPUTNIK
