"The executions of 36 convicted over the Speicher crime were carried out this morning in Nasiriyah prison," a spokesman for the governor’s office in Dhiqar said. Iraq on Sunday hanged 36 men convicted over the 2014 massacre by Sunni jihadists and allied militants of hundreds of military recruits, officials said. They had been found guilty of involvement in the “Speicher” massacre, named after a base near Tikrit where up to 1,700 recruits were kidnapped before being executed in a massacre claimed by the Islamic State group. “The governor of Dhiqar, Yahya al—Nasseri and Justice Minister Haidar al—Zamili were present to oversee the executions,” Abdelhassan Dawood said. His spokesman said that around 400 of the Speicher massacre victims were from the Dhiqar province, which is predominantly Shiite and located in Iraq’s south.

Source: The Hindu August 21, 2016 10:07 UTC