ERBIL, Kurdistan Region -Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) on Tuesday announced that the former director of the Baghdad Agriculture Directorate has been sentenced to death over his involvement in a July attack on the directorate’s office that left two people dead and several others injured.
In a statement on its official website, the Council said the convicted official, “along with an armed group, stormed the Baghdad Agriculture Directorate and clashed with security forces after a decision was issued to relieve him of his post and appoint someone else in his place.”
The confrontation “led to the martyrdom of one security officer and one civilian, and the injury of others,” it added.
The SJC said the individual was sentenced “in accordance with the provisions of Article 4/1 and in reference to Article 2/1/3/5 of the Anti-Terrorism Law No. 13 of 2005.” These articles define terrorism as using violence to spread fear, participating in an armed gang, and assaulting security offices. Once an act is classified as a terrorist crime, the Council is obliged to impose the maximum punishment, which is the death sentence.
In late July, the Security Media Cell of the Joint Operations Command described the armed assault on the directorate’s office in Baghdad’s western Karkh district as a “reprehensible incident,” noting that more than a dozen suspects linked to the Iran-aligned Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) have been arrested in connection with the attack.
“Security forces were able to arrest 14 suspects” who were identified as members of the PMF’s “brigades 45 and 46,” the Cell said, adding that the suspects “have been referred to the judiciary, with legal proceedings underway.”
Brigades 45 and 46 are affiliated with the Kata’ib Hezbollah - a powerful Iranian-backed Iraqi armed group designated by the United States as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). Washington accuses the group - a key player in the Iran-led ‘Axis of Resistance’ - of numerous attacks on US assets in the region, particularly after the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas conflict in October 2023.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani - who also serves as commander-in-chief of the Iraqi armed forces, including the PMF - then “ordered the formation of a high-level investigative committee” to probe “how an armed force acted without official orders or approvals, attempted to seize a government building, and opened fire on security units,” the Security Media Cell added.
Kata’ib Hezbollah then dismissed the government’s response, calling the incident a “trap whose threads were tightened by the hand of one of the Shiite traitors,” without naming anyone.
Its spokesperson, Abu Ali al-Askari, accused “corrupt security leaders” of serving “the American and Israeli project represented in chaos and division,” and criticized Sudani for lacking military experience and leadership qualities. Askari also urged the ruling Shiite Coordination Framework to replace the premier with a “qualified” individual.
For its part, the Coordination Framework condemned the attack as a “violation of the law and state procedures.”