Iraqi court sentences five Takfiri Daesh terrorists to death by hanging

A court in Iraq has sentenced five Iraqi nationals to death by hanging over their membership in the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group and involvement in criminal acts in the war-ravaged Arab country.

Abdul Sattar al-Biraqdar, spokesman for Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council, said in a statement that the country’s Central Criminal Court issued the verdicts against the convicts after they confessed to having fought against security and military forces in Nineveh and Anbar provinces and carrying out terrorist attacks, Arabic-language al-Forat television network reported.

The development came only a day after the same Iraqi court sentenced 55-year-old French citizen Lahcen Ammar Gueboudj and German national Nadia Rainer Hermann, 22, to life imprisonment on charges of affiliation to Daesh terror group.

The Criminal Court of Nineveh sentenced an unnamed Daesh militant to death On July 8 after he was convicted of killing 16 people at Mosul General Hospital, and planting hundreds of bombs east of the provincial capital city of Mosul, located some 400 kilometers (250 miles) north of Baghdad.

Biraqdar said the convict has confessed to executing civilians, and planting 250 explosive devices across the town of Bartella.

On June 30, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who is also the commander-in-chief of Iraqi forces, pledged to hunt down Daesh militants across Iraq after recent attacks and abductions carried out by the terrorist group.

“We will chase the remaining cells of terrorism in their hideouts and we will kill them, we will chase them everywhere, in the mountains and the desert,” Abadi said.

Abadi declared the end of military operations against Daesh in the Arab country on December 9, 2017.

On July 10 that year, the Iraqi prime minister had formally declared victory over Daesh extremists in Mosul, which served as the terrorists’ main urban stronghold in the conflict-ridden Arab country.

In the run-up to Mosul’s liberation, Iraqi army soldiers and volunteer Hashd al-Sha’abi fighters had made sweeping gains against Daesh.

The Iraqi forces took control of eastern Mosul in January 2017 after 100 days of fighting, and launched the battle in the west on February 19 last year.

Daesh began a terror campaign in Iraq in 2014, overrunning vast swathes in lightning attacks.