Iraq announced on Monday the execution of four Al-Qaeda members, including the former leader of the terrorist network in Baghdad. The number of people executed since the beginning of the year is 22, despite calls from the international community to introduce a moratorium, according to AFP.
“The executions for the four terrorists were carried out by hanging, for their role in leading terrorist groups which planned and carried out a large number of criminal acts against the people in a number of provinces, including bombings in Baghdad and (Iraq’ s western province of) Anbar,” the Iraqi Ministry of Justice said in a statement.
Former top leader of Al-Qaeda in Baghdad province, Munaf Abdul Raheem al-Rawi, was arrested in March 2010. Baghdad military headquarters at the time gave assurances that al-Rawi, an Iraqi born in Moscow in 1975, joined Al Qaida in 2003, immediately after the removal from power of Saddam Hussein, becoming the leader of the terrorist organization in Baghdad in 2008.
He would have supervised attacks committed against Iraqi Finance and Foreign ministries in august 2009, in which 106 people were killed and another 600 injured.
According to information available to AFP, Iraq has executed 22 people since the beginning of this year. Eighteen convicts were executed on March 14 and March 17 for “terrorist activities”. In 2012, there were 129 executions in Iraq.
Iraqi Justice Minister Hassan al-Shammari assured last month that the regime does not intend to halt executions.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq said in its claim that it is necessary that the wave of anti Shiite attacks resulting in 56 deaths on March 19, to be considered a “revenge” for all people “executed” by the Iraqi authorities.
Iraq executions caused frequent outrage of the international community. The United Nation mission in Iraq, United Kingdom, the European Union, Amnesty International NGOs and Human Rights Watch all urged Baghdad to introduce a moratorium on death penalty. The capital punishment in Iraq was suspended on June 2003 for over a year.
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