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Iraq sentences 11 to death

BAGHDAD, Jan 14 – An Iraqi court Thursday sentenced to death 11 men, including Al-Qaeda militants, over devastating truck bombings in Baghdad on August 19 that killed more than 100 people, a judicial official told AFP.

"They are sentenced to death for the crime they planned," Ali Abdul Sattar, president of the criminal court, said at a hearing in the Iraqi capital.

The August 19 attacks outside the ministries of finance and foreign affairs caused massive destruction, killed 106 people and wounded around 600 others.

Those convicted included Salim Abed Jassim who confessed that he received funding for the attacks from Brigadier General Nabil Abdul Rahman, a senior army officer during the rule of Saddam Hussein now living in Syria.

Also sentenced to death were Ishaq Mohammed Abbas, an Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader and his brother Mustapha, the court official told AFP.

Both men had once been detained but were later released from Camp Bucca, a now closed US-run prison in the southern city of Basra.

The August 19 truck attacks on what was dubbed "Black Wednesday" marked Iraq\’s worst day of violence in 18 months and prompted outrage among citizens at how the bombers had been able to commit such atrocities.

The government, which blamed the attacks on Al-Qaeda and Saddam loyalists from the executed dictator\’s outlawed Baath political party, admitted at the time that negligence at checkpoints allowed the attackers to penetrate the capital.
 

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