Iraq sentences confessed killer of two journalists to death
Local television reporter Ahmad Abdessamad and his cameraman, Safaa Ghali, were killed in Iraq's southern city of Basra last year.
An Iraqi man accused of killing two journalists during anti-government protests in southern Iraq last year was sentenced to death by hanging on Monday.
In January 2020, Ahmad Abdessamad, a 37-year-old reporter for the local station Dijlah TV, and his 26-year-old cameraman, Safaa Ghali, were driving in the city of Basra when a group of armed men opened fire on their car. Abdessamad died on the scene, and Ghali succumbed to his gunshot wounds in a hospital.
The suspect, who the Basra Criminal Court identified as “HK,” confessed that he had shot at the journalists “with the aim of destabilizing security and stability and intimidating people for terrorist purposes.” He now has 30 days to appeal his death sentence.
Abdessamad and Ghali had been covering the anti-government protests that erupted in Baghdad and across Iraq’s Shiite-majority south in October 2019. The demonstrations, which called for an end to growing Iranian influence, government corruption and a lack of basic services, forced the resignation of then-Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi.
