IRAQ: 340 DEATH SENTENCES RATIFIED FOLLOWING ISIS SUICIDE BOMBINGS

January 25, 2021:

Iraq’s president ratified more than 340 death sentences for people with terrorism and other criminal charges, state media reported on 24 January 2021, just three days after Islamic State (ISIS) group suicide bombers killed dozens of civilians in Baghdad.
An unnamed source in President Barham Salih’s office told state media outlet Iraqi News Agency (INA) that the approvals took place after "the cases were scrutinized from all their constitutional and legal aspects," indicating that they have received the final approval needed to carry out the executions.
Rudaw English contacted Iraq’s Minister of Justice Salar Abdul Satar for further details on the cases, but was unable to reach him or his media spokesperson.
The death sentence approvals follow the deaths of 32 people in twin suicide bombings claimed by ISIS in central Baghdad’s Tayaran Square on 21 January.
At least 110 others were injured in the blasts, according to Iraq's health ministry.
Human Rights Watch described the mass execution order as politically motivated, rather than a move made out of concern for justice.
"This announcement unfortunately speaks to a concern we have had for many years in Iraq that the death penalty is used as a political tool more than anything else," Belkis Wille, the watchdog's senior crisis and conflict researcher, told Rudaw English on 24 January.
"Leaders resort to announcements of mass executions, simply to signal to the public they are taking terrorism seriously, without any regards for the fact that the trials are so fundamentally flawed and often so relied on confessions extracted by torture," said Wille.
"There is no certainty within the Iraqi system that people that are getting the death penalty are guilty for the crime that they are said to have committed," she added.