ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Iraqi High Tribunal on Sunday sentenced a former Baath party official to death for his role in the killing of 15 Kurdish members of the Barzani tribe during the rule of the Baath regime, a judge familiar with the matter said on Sunday.
Judge Aso Mohammed, former head of the Barzani Genocide case at the Iraqi High Tribunal, who attended the session, told Rudaw that the court “sentenced Shakir Taha Yahya al-Douri, a former official of the Baath party regime, to death on charges of involvement in the case of killing 15 Barzanis in 1984.” He added that “the crime was committed in the Saqlawiyah area of Anbar province.”
Douri was arrested on January 31 by the Iraqi National Security Service (INSS) alongside four other former regime officials accused of various crimes. The trial was held on Sunday in Baghdad.
According to Judge Mohammed, Douri played a significant role at the time as he was “an officer with the rank of captain in the Baghdad security apparatus," he said, adding that Douri "committed the crime alongside a group of other officers."
The judge also noted that another defendant named in the same case, Sadoun Sabri, was ruled “innocent” in this specific case.
The document of the ruling obtained by Rudaw confirms that Douri was "sentenced to death by hanging until dead... for his participation in the mass execution operations by shooting of Kurdish tribesmen from the Barzani clan in mass graves in Fallujah/Saqlawiyah, as a crime of genocide and a crime against humanity.