The Kirkuk Criminal Court sentenced two men to death for the murder and slaughter of a man and woman in one of Kirkuk's neighborhood last November.
On Thursday, May 19, 2022, the court sentenced Wissam Salahuddin Ali Fatah Bayati and Abdul Dud Lais Krumy to death under Article 406 of the Iraqi Penal Code for the deliberate murder of a man and his wife in Kirku’s Shoraw neighborhood.
According to the court's decision, a copy of which was obtained by KirkukNow, the two suspects were plead guilty and were sentenced twice to death twice, once in the case of Nur Badr Jassim, the wife, and once in the case of Abbas Fazel Ahmad, the husband upon a lawsuit filed by the relatives of the couple.
On November 18, the local police recovered the bodies of a man and woman from their home in Shoraw neighborhood. The man, Abbas Fazel Ahmad, had been slaughtered and his wife, Nur Badr Jassim, had been shot to death.
More than a month after the incident, the Kirkuk Counter Crime Police, said in a statement on December 22, 2021, that in collaboration with the Basra Police, they have arrested three fugitives in the case.
"The suspects, two men and a woman, fled to Basra province after slaughtering a woman and a man at their house in Shoraw," the statement said.
One of the perpetrators admitted to being close to the man, and had a criminal record, police added in the statement.
Article 406 of the Iraqi Penal Code provides for the death penalty for anyone who intentionally kills anyone.
The court did not mention the third person arrested with the two suspects.
Abbas Fazel was about 55 years old and his wife was about 45 years old.
"Their car, a Hyundai 2020, was taken away after the killing... but it was found in the afternoon of the same day between Panja Ali and Qadsiya neighborhoods in Kirkuk," a police source told KirkukNow then.
The woman is a teacher and of Arab ethnicity, according to neighbors who spoke to KirkukNow earlier and stressed that "she was the man's second wife.”
The man,a Kurd, was an employee of the Kirkuk municipality.
“They came to this neighborhood not long ago. They were alone and had no children with them,” a neighbors said anonymously following the incident.
The oil-rich city of Kirkuk, 238 kilometers north of Baghdad, is an ethnically mixed province for 1.7 million Kurds, Arabs, and Turkmen, Muslims, Christians and Kaka'is. It has long been at the center of disputes between Baghdad and the Erbil.
Currently, Iraqi army, local and federal police, Brigade 61 of Special Forces along with Shiite paramilitary of Popular Mobilization Forces PMF, are under Kirkuk joint operations’ command, an umbrella for the security forces running the security of Kirkuk province.
