Iraq has hanged 36 men convicted over the killing of up to 1,700 military recruits at a former US base in 2014.<\/p>\n
The massacre at Camp Speicher, near Tikrit, was carried out by fighters from so-called Islamic State (IS) as it seized territory across northern Iraq.<\/p>\n
Outrage over the massacre of the mostly Shia cadets helped mobilise Iraq’s Shia militias in the fight against IS.<\/p>\n
IS militants released photos and video documenting the massacre in 2014. Mass graves were found a year later.
\nThe graves were discovered when Iraqi government forces recaptured the area.<\/p>\n
“The executions of 36 convicted over the Speicher crime were carried out this morning in Nasiriyah prison,” a spokesman for the governor’s office in Dhiqar, the province of which Nasiriyah is the capital, told Agence France-Presse news agency.<\/p>\n
The spokesman said that Justice Minister Haidar al-Zamili was present at the executions.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi had said after last month’s Baghdad bomb blast that killed more than 300 people that he wanted to speed up executions of terrorism convicts.<\/p>\n
Those executed on Sunday, all believed to be Iraqi citizens, had been sentenced to death in February.<\/p>\n
Photos and videos published by IS after the massacre showed soldiers being loaded on to vehicles and forced to lie face down on the ground before being shot dead.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Iraq has hanged 36 men convicted over the killing of up to 1,700 military recruits at a former US base in 2014. The massacre at Camp Speicher, near Tikrit, was carried out by fighters from so-called Islamic State (IS) as it seized territory across northern Iraq. Outrage over the massacre of the mostly Shia cadets […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":241521,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[107],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n