Iraq: 19 Russian women handed life sentences for joining ISIS

Iraqi authorities have arrested more than 560 women identified as IS militants.

Women are among 560 arrested for 'joining and supporting' the armed group that was defeated last December.

A court in Baghdad sentenced 19 Russian women to life in prison for joining Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters in the country.

A Central Criminal Court ruling determined on Sunday the Russian women were guilty of "joining and supporting" ISIL, AFP news agency reported.

The women, many accompanied by their children, addressed the court through a translator - a Russian -language professor at Baghdad University hired by the Russian embassy.

A Russian diplomat at the hearing said the families of the women will be contacted and "informed of the verdict".

Another six women from Azerbaijan and four from Tajikistan were also given life sentences.

Most of the women on trial claimed to have been misled into making the trip to Iraq.

"I did not know we were in Iraq … I went with my husband and my children to Turkey to live there and then I suddenly discovered I was actually in Iraq," one of the accused said on Sunday.

Mass arrests

ISIL fighters surprised Iraqi forces with a lightning-quick offensive in 2014 and captured about one-third of the country, including the second-largest city Mosul, among others.

Since declaring victory over ISIL in late 2017, Iraqi authorities have arrested more than 560 women and 600 children identified as either as members of the group or relatives of fighters.

Earlier this month, an Iraqi court sentenced French national Djamila Boutoutaou to life imprisonment for joining the armed group.

Boutoutaou told authorities at the time she travelled with her husband thinking they would go on a holiday, but soon realised once in Turkey that her "husband was a jihadist".

Her husband was later killed in a military operation near Mosul along with their son. Boutoutaou subsequently surrendered to Kurdish Peshmerga forces in Iraq.

Experts estimate Iraq has detained more than 20,000 people over suspected ties to the group and has sentenced more than 300 people to death so far. Twelve ISIL widows were given the death penalty in February.

Iraq's anti-terrorism laws empower courts to convict people who are believed to have helped ISIL, even if they were not directly involved in fighting.

Source: aljazeera.com, April 29, 2018

⚑ | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com.

Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE!

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde

Texas death row prisoner dies after more than 30 years behind bars

A Houston-area man convicted of killing his wife died this week after more than 3 decades on death row, marking the 2nd condemned prisoner to die behind bars in the past month. Prison officials confirmed that William "Billy the Kid" Mason was taken to the hospital on Wednesday and died of cardiac arrest Friday morning. The 71-year-old was originally sent to death row in 1992, after prosecutors said he'd kidnapped his wife and beaten her to death under a bridge because she was playing the radio too loudly. According to court records, her body was found several days later under some logs near the San Jacinto River.

Louisiana | Mother calls for man exonerated of raping and murdering her child to go free

Wrongful convictions by 2 discredited Mississippi experts tops at least 10. A victim’s family in Louisiana is now speaking out. Prosecutors fighting the release of death row inmate Jimmie Duncan after a judge found him “factually innocent” of raping and murdering 23-month-old Haley Oliveaux are “not speaking for Haley’s family,” her mother says. Speaking publicly for the 1st time, Allison Layton Statham called for Duncan to go free in a July 22 bail hearing. “This innocent man is on death row,” she told Mississippi Today. “Justice needs to be done.” In April, a judge threw out Duncan’s conviction, questioning their conclusions and citing the failures of his court-appointed counsel.

Alabama Gov. sets execution date for Geoffrey Todd West

Ivey sets execution for Geoffrey Todd West for 1997 murder at Alabama convenience store ATTALLA, Ala. – A man convicted of killing a convenience store clerk during a 1997 robbery in Attalla is now scheduled to be executed by nitrogen hypoxia later this year, nearly three decades after the crime shook Attalla and Etowah County.

Tennessee death row inmate makes last-ditch effort to prevent Aug. 5 execution

Attorneys for a Tennessee death row inmate have launched a last-ditch effort to prevent his Aug. 5 execution. In Nashville 's Chancery Court, they are asking a judge to require the Tennessee Department of Correction to deactivate an implanted defibrillation device similar to a pacemaker in the moments before Byron Black 's execution. If the judge rules in their favor, such an order could potentially delay the execution until the state finds someone willing to do the deactivation.

Inside a Mississippi execution: Clarion Ledger reporter recounts what it was like

The visitation center at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman has no windows, just fluorescent lighting, plastic chairs and tables in a cafeteria-style room. I could technically step outside, but only through a single entrance and doing so meant going through the full security screening all over again — it didn’t feel worth it. A few friendly prison staff walked around, quietly watching us. The Wi-Fi cut in and out. All the while, I returned to the thought I was there to watch someone die.

Inside Japan's secretive execution jails where death row inmates are given minutes notice before facing the noose

From the outside, the Tokyo Detention House looks much like the other tall, austere buildings native to Katsushika City, but its drab facade and tree-lined grounds conceal a far more sinister reality. It is here that Japan's most deplorable criminals are plucked from their cells and hanged underneath fluorescent lights in a cold, bare wood-panelled room. There is a chillingly theatrical element to how the condemned are executed in the East Asian country - the only member of the G7 besides the US that still metes out capital punishment. Shackled prisoners are led past a small gold statue of Kannon, a Buddhist figure associated with compassion, as they enter their sterile execution chamber.

Journalists Reflect on the Challenges and Importance of Media Reporting on the Death Penalty

In this month’s podcast episode of 12:01 The Death Penalty in Context, DPIC’s Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with Sam Levin, a correspondent with The Guardian who covers criminal justice and the legal system, and Jimmy Jenkins, a criminal justice reporter for The Arizona Republic , about the challenges they encounter when reporting on the increasing secretive use of the death penalty. Mr. Jenkins has witnessed executions in Arizona and Mr. Levin has recently investigated South Carolina’s return to executions after a 13-year pause.

Japan executes 'Twitter killer' who murdered nine in 2017

TOKYO — Japan on Friday executed a man dubbed the "Twitter killer" who murdered and dismembered nine people he met online, in the nation's first enactment of the death penalty since 2022. Takahiro Shiraishi, 34, was hanged for killing his young victims, all but one of whom were women, after contacting them on the social media platform now called X. He had targeted users who posted about taking their own lives, telling them he could help them in their plans, or even die alongside them. Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki said Shiraishi's crimes, carried out in 2017, included "robbery, rape, murder... destruction of a corpse and abandonment of a corpse".

Woman who watched nearly 300 executions explained moment she had to give it up

Michelle Lyons' job wasn't for the fainthearted A woman who watched nearly 300 death row executions take place over 12 years opened up about how her macabre career impacted her life. For more than a decade, it was part of Michelle Lyons' job description to observe the final moments of hundreds of prisoners in the US state of Texas. She says the process never 'become mundane or normal', although she did become acclimatized to it - as she went on to watch so many executions that she 'can't recall' a lot of them.

New execution methods may soon come to Florida

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Next month, the state of Florida will officially be allowed to use new means of executing prisoners on death row — with some caveats. That’s because of a state law (HB 903) that’s set to take effect on July 1, alongside over 120 others. The law actually makes a variety of technical changes to different issues, including prepayment of court costs, statutes of limitations on prisoner lawsuits, and location tracking for inmates. However, one of the more prominent issues tackled by the law is the death penalty. Under prior law, a death sentence carried out in Florida had to be performed via either electrocution or lethal injection. The choice of which was left up to the prisoner being executed.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog