Iraq executes 31 convicts in Speicher Camp massacre
Iraqi soldiers carry coffins containing the remains of ten of their comrades who were killed in Camp Speicher massacre.
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) Iraqi judicial authorities executed on Monday 31 convicts linked to a massacre carried out by the Islamic State that left 1700 Iraqi air force cadets dead in 2014.
Anadolu Agency quoted Mahmoud Khalaf, the mayor of Samarra, Salahuddin, as saying that some of the convicts belonged to his city, while the rest were from other areas of the province. He said the dead bodies were transferred to the city’s public hospital preparing to hand them over to their relatives.
The massacre occurred at the Speicher air base in Tikrit, the capital of Salahuddin, when Islamic State militants executed 1700 Shia students at the air force. The victims were either shot at or beheaded before their corpses were dumped into the Tigris River, which cuts through Tikrit. The incident was one instance among many that ignited public discontent with the performance of former prime minister Nouri Al-Maliki.
On Sunday, security sources were quoted as saying that 89 bodies of the massacre’s victims were found at a mass grave in Tikrit. They were to be exhumed, subjected to a DNA test and handed over to their families, according to news reports.
Since its emergence in 2014, taking over large areas of Iraq to proclaim an “Islamic Caliphate”, IS militants have proudly posted movies of heinous executions it carried out against security personnel and civilians at areas under its control for multiple charges.