Yesterday, the Babel Criminal Court, south of Baghdad, issued a death sentence against an officer with the rank of lieutenant colonel and an informant, against the background of a security operation that was based on false information, and ended with the killing of 20 people from one family, including children.

According to an official statement of the Judicial Council published by the Iraqi News Agency yesterday, "the Babylon Criminal Court issued a death sentence by hanging to death against two of the accused who were convicted of committing the crime," while the remaining accused will be tried at a later time.

A source in the Criminal Court said that the two sentenced to death are an intelligence lieutenant colonel in the Interior Ministry and an informant who provided false information, explaining that 18 other defendants are awaiting trial in this case, including members of the security forces.

The verdict that was issued is recognizable, according to a judicial source in the Babylon Criminal Court, familiar with the case in which the provincial police chief was dismissed and a number of officers were arrested.

One of the relatives of the victims of the "Jableh" massacre: Some family members were killed without being shot, which means that they were killed by smoke bombs thrown by the security forces.

pic.twitter.com/5cyzmMknUy

— Iraqi Observatory for Human Rights (@IOHRiraq) January 1, 2022

Incident details

The tragedy occurred last December in the village of Al-Rashid in the Jableh area of ​​the Babil Governorate in central Iraq, when a joint force of intelligence and special missions raided a house, searching for two wanted men believed to be accused of "terrorism".

After that, the Iraqi judiciary explained that an "informant" - who is the nephew of one of the victims - gave "false news as a result of family disputes, as he gave incorrect information to the security services, claiming the presence of wanted terrorists ... to raid his house."

The circumstances of the Jableh "massacre" ignited social media, which prompted the government to open an urgent investigation into the incident, and Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kazemi vowed to hold the parties involved in this massacre and those misleading about it accountable.

Al-Kazemi said - in a tweet he posted on his Twitter account - "We closely followed the circumstances of the bloody Babylon massacre, and an attempt to mislead the government and public opinion was revealed, and this is a crime in itself. We tolerate any failure within the security system."


We closely followed the circumstances of the bloody

Babylon massacre, and an attempt to mislead the government and public opinion was revealed, and that is a crime in itself.

— Mustafa Al-Kadhimi (@MAKadhimi) January 3, 2022

Al-Kazemi dismissed the police chief of Babylon, the director of Babel intelligence, and the director of Jableh intelligence, while referring them to the immediate investigation, and bringing all those involved in the crime to the judiciary to implement the maximum penalties against them.

He also ordered that those concerned with transmitting and announcing security information in the Ministry of Interior and the Security Media Cell be referred to an investigation regarding the dissemination of misleading information about the incident, according to a statement issued by his office.