Iraq Executes 36 Individuals Accused of Spiker Massacre

Iraqi officials on Sunday executed 36 individuals who had been sentenced to death for their involvement in the massacre of 1,700 Iraqi soldiers in 2014. The mass killing of these Iraqi soldiers, who were captured at the Spiker airbase in Tikrit, is known as the Spiker massacre and is considered one of the bloodiest actions by ISIS in Iraq. On Sunday, news agencies reported that the execution of the 36 accused took place in a prison in Nasiriyah, the capital of Dhi Qar province, in the presence of dozens of relatives of the victims. These individuals were sentenced to death by a court after the Iraqi government regained control over Tikrit and arrested dozens accused of participating in the Spiker massacre. However, the BBC reported that some of the accused claimed they were not in the vicinity of Tikrit at the time of the massacre, and others stated they had no access to legal representation or were under pressure to confess. Dhi Qar is a predominantly Shia province in southern Iraq, and according to the spokesperson for the Dhi Qar governor, nearly 400 of the victims in the Spiker massacre were from this province. Two years ago, during the capture of Tikrit, ISIS executed about 1,700 Iraqi soldiers who had been taken captive from the Spiker base by shooting them in the head. After the recapture of Tikrit last year, the Iraqi government reported the discovery of four mass graves containing the bodies of nearly 500 Iraqi soldiers believed to have been killed during the Spiker massacre by ISIS. In addition to the bodies found in these mass graves, reports indicated that some soldiers were thrown into the Tigris River after being killed. Images released by ISIS of this massacre showed group members lined up hundreds of young men in various locations and executed them all. This act was met with severe backlash from human rights organizations, and Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, described it as a 'war crime.' The execution of these individuals comes at a time when Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has called for the expedited implementation of death sentences for those convicted in terrorism cases following a deadly explosion in Baghdad last month that left 300 dead.