Iraq hangs 10 convicted of “terrorism,” officials say

Iraqi authorities executed 10 people convicted of “terrorism” offenses at a prison in the southern city of Nasiriyah, a medical source and a security source told Agence France-Presse on Tuesday.

A source at the Forensic Medicine Department of the Dhi Qar Health Directorate said, “Ten bodies of inmates who were executed by hanging today at Al-Hoot Prison (the central prison) in Nasiriyah were received. They had been sentenced to death under Article 4 of the Anti-Terrorism Law, and the executions were carried out after approval from the relevant authorities.”

A security source confirmed the information.

Nasiriyah Prison is known as “Al-Hoot Prison” because of the widespread belief among many Iraqis that anyone who enters it will not leave alive.

In recent years, Iraqi courts have issued hundreds of death sentences and life imprisonment terms against people convicted of belonging to a “terrorist group,” following trials that human rights groups have condemned, saying the verdicts were issued hastily.

Under Iraqi law, terrorism and murder offenses are punishable by death.

The president must approve the sentences before they can be carried out.

In September 2024, Iraqi authorities executed 21 people, including a woman, convicted of offenses including “terrorism.”

It was the highest number of executions carried out in several months.

Human rights organizations have previously called on the authorities to “immediately halt secret executions” and “torture” of death-row prisoners in Iraq, where dozens of such sentences are carried out each year.

Iraqi prisons, already overcrowded with people suspected of belonging to Daesh, are also holding thousands of additional detainees transferred from Syria last year.

Trials began in Iraq last week for six French nationals accused of belonging to the group.