On August 10, 2017, the Iraqi government arrested three young men, born in Kobani city / Syria, two of them brothers and their third cousin, who were working under an Iraqi government license to dig wells in Mosul.
On 27 December, Rusafa Court issued a sentence of life imprisonment for three young men from the first session. Their families have not been able to visit since that time because they do not have Iraqi residence as refugees living in Erbil city in the Kurdistan Region. They say their children were severely tortured in prison before being transferred to trial.
Their family received the last letter from their detained children on December 28, 2017 through a humanitarian organization stating that they were in fourth Rusafa prison in Iraq.
Documentation of the names of the three convicts:
Shahin Mohammed Gul Agassi Born in 1986 Married
Idris Mohamed Gul Agassi Born 1982 Married
Mohammed Hussein Gul Agassi Born 1999 Married and has a child
Details:
Three young Syrians from kobani city / Ain Al Arab – which witnessed the end of 2014 fierce battles between the Kurdish forces on the one hand and ISL organization of an advocate on the other – were arrested in the Iraqi territories where they were working and sentenced to life imprisonment on charges of belonging to ISL , Two of whom were his brothers Muhammad Qulaga and Idris Gulaga and their cousin Mohammed Hussein Gulaga) were arrested by the Iraqi authorities in Mosul area 2017 (the area was liberated at the time of ISL) during their departure from the Kurdistan region of Iraq to Mosul to work in their profession ( They work under a work permit were arrested by Iraqi intelligence on charges of belonging to ISL organization on the terrorist to be transferred to Al muthanna airport after being held for 3 days by the Iraqi intelligence service. Who fled during the attack of ISL organization on Kobani city to the Kurdistan region of Iraq, they confirmed that their children have acknowledged the charges attributed to them as a result of severe torture by the Iraqi authorities.
We learned from the detainees that the three young men were sentenced to life imprisonment despite the denial of charges brought before them. The court informed them that they had been extracted under torture and coercion and that they had demanded testimony from the local population in their innocence. However, the judge relied on statements made in their testimony to Intelligence division Extracted from them under torture, where they were sentenced to judiciary on charges to them, which are:
To provide logistical support to ISL organization and help them to commit criminal acts and participate with the organization in attacking Iraqi security and military forces and worked with the organization as a branch of manufacturing and the work of shields of mechanisms of organization. The court continued its accusations by saying: The denial of these charges does not diminish evidence , that the aim of their denial is impunity. The court justified its ruling and said : This evidence is sufficient and convincing to criminalize the three defendants Mohammed Hussein Gulaga, Idris Muhammad Suleiman and Shaheen Muhammad.
The family of the three youths told Documentation Center of Violations that they searched a lot about a way to help them meet their children, visit them in prison, they had lawyers but they were not allowed to visit them, they were blackmailed to pay as much as $ 100,000 and the mothers of young men managed to reach Baghdad in order to visit their children in exchange for facilities and pay money but without interest.
They returned to Erbil without being able to meet them. The family confirmed that their financial situation was difficult and that the one-year-old daughter of Mohammed Hussein Gulaga died and her father was detained.
Several international organizations, including Human Rights Watch, have accused Iraq of conducting trials of suspected ISIS members under the Iraqi anti-terrorism law, only by conducting brief trials based on defendants’ confessions and without the participation of victims. The authorities have not done what is necessary to protect and collect evidence in the mass graves left by ISIS.
The report revealed that the Iraqi government and the Kurdistan Regional Government conducted thousands of trials of suspected members of the ISIS without a strategy to give priority to the worst violations under the Iraqi and international law.
Based on a UN Security Council resolution in September 2017, a team was established to document the serious crimes committed by ISIS in Iraq. By the end of 2018, however, the team had not yet begun conducting investigations in Iraq.
Iraqi forces are also accused of arbitrarily detaining some suspected ISIS members for months; most of them Sunni men. According to witnesses and relatives of the suspects, the security forces detained them without a court order, arrest warrant or any document justifying the arrest, and often did not submit any reason for the arrest.
They also violated the rights of ISIS suspects: such as ensuring appearance before a judge within 24 hours, access to counsel during interrogation, and informing families of the detention and granting them the opportunity to communicate with them.
Detainees in Nineveh province also provided detailed testimonies of torture during interrogations in Mosul prisons of the Ministry of the Interior, which sometimes led to the death of detainees. These allegations are consistent with widespread reports that Iraqi forces have adopted torture as a means of extracting confessions instead of conducting comprehensive criminal investigations.
