Alwaght- Iraq has executed three people convicted in a 2016 bombing case involving the ISIS terrorist group that killed people in the country's capital.
The office of Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said on Monday that the hangings were carried out on Sunday night and Monday morning, but did not name those executed or provide details about when they were sentenced.
The attack took place early on July 3, 2016, in Baghdad’s Karrada shopping area when it was filled with people in advance of the Eid al-Fitr festival at the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
The car bomb caused flames that spread and trapped people inside shopping centers. By the time the fire was put out, 323 people had died, making it one of the deadliest attacks to ever hit Iraq and one of the world’s deadliest attacks.
Police Major-General Talib Khalil Rahi said at the time that the bomber’s minibus had been loaded with plastic explosives and ammonium nitrate. Some of the dead could not be identified due to the intensity of the raging fires.
Al-Sudani’s office said in its statement that the prime minister met the victims’ families following the hangings and informed them that “the rightful punishment of death sentence was carried out against three key criminals found guilty of their involvement in the terrorist bombing”.
Amid instability in Iraq, ISIS overran large territories in the north and west of Baghdad in 2014.
Iraqi forces had regained significant parts of the country’s lost territory from the terrorist group by the time the bombing took place, with the attack seen as ISIS targeting civilians in response.
A large military campaign ensued, and the Iraqi central government declared victory against the group in late 2017.
