Al-Qaeda militants sentenced to death over 2006 massacre in Iraq's Dujeil

Al-Qaeda militants sentenced to death over 2006 massacre in Iraq's Dujeil

2011-06-17 10:25:33 GMT+7 (ICT)

BAGHDAD (BNO NEWS) -- The Iraqi Central Criminal Court on Thursday issued a death sentence against 15 militants of an al-Qaeda cell who perpetrated the 2006 Dujeil Massacre in which 70 people were killed.

According to the Aswat al-Iraq news agency on Friday, Firas al-Jiboury and his terrorist group were sentenced to death but they still have one month to appeal the ruling. The 15 defendants brutally killed 70 people during a wedding in Dujeil Township in 2006.

Last May, Iraqi security forces arrested 25 suspects as part of the investigation into the Dujeil Massacre, including al-Jiboury who was posing as a human rights activist. Fifteen of them were charged with perpetrating the massacre during of a wedding party.

The attack happened after the marriage of a Shiite man and a Sunni woman when the militants detonated an improvised explosive device (IED) on the road where the party was travelling. Then, the criminals separated the women, men and children.

Afterwards, all the women were raped and the children drown in the Tigris River. Finally, the remaining people were executed and thrown from a bridge crossing the same river.

Several opposition parties, including the Committee for Martyrs and Victims and Political Prisoners, demanded Iraqi President Jalal Talabani to sign the death sentences of the perpetrators of the massacre which shocked the country and the world as a whole.

However, Talabani repeatedly refused to sign the authorizations due to his position as Deputy Chairman of the Socialist International. Instead, he directed Vice-President, Khudhier al-Khuzae, to sign the death sentences.

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