Baghdad, January 14: An Iraqi court has handed death sentences to 11 men charged with involvement in Baghdad’s August 19 bombings that killed more than 100 people.
“They are sentenced to death for the crime they planned,” said Ali Abdul Sattar, head of the criminal court, on Thursday at a hearing in the Iraqi capital.
On August 19, bombing attacks targeted the ministries of finance and foreign affairs causing massive destruction and leaving 106 people killed and around 600 others wounded.
Those convicted included Salim Abed Jassim who confessed that he received funding for the attacks from Brig. Gen. Nabil Abdul Rahman, a senior army officer during the Baath Party rule under the executed dictator Saddam Hussein.
The other co-defendants sentenced to death were Ishaq Mohammed Abbas, an al-Qaeda operative in Iraq and his brother, Mustapha.
Both men were once detained but released shortly afterward from Camp Bucca, now a closed US-run detention facility in southern Basra, according to AFP.
The truck bombings on August 19 — dubbed “Black Wednesday” — sparked outrage among Iraqi civilians, as it took place despite tight security in Baghdad’s most fortified area. Serious questions have also been raised about the viability of the area’s security system.
The government blamed the attacks on al-Qaeda and Saddam loyalists from the outlawed Baath Party but admitted that negligence at checkpoints allowed the attackers to infiltrate the capital.
——-Agencies