Erbil court sentences 3 to death in killing of Iranian Kurdish commander

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Erbil’s criminal court on Monday sentenced three people to death for the 2018 murder of a Kurdish Iranian commander. 

“Erbil criminal court decided to sentence to death the three perpetrators who had confessed to their crimes in killing Qadir Qadiri,” Ayad Kakayi a lawyer in the case said in a press conference following the court sitting. 

Qadir Qadiri, a commander of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDP-I) was found dead in March 2018 in Hartal village, Ranya district, near Sulaimani’s border with Iran.

The court convicted five people in connection with his murder in late July, but sentencing was delayed to August. The other two convicted in the case did not confess to their involvement and were sentenced under Iraq’s penal code regarding giving false information or withholding information. Four are citizens of the Kurdistan Region and the other comes from Kurdish areas of Iran.

For the three death sentences, lawyers have made an appeal to have the conviction upgraded from willful killing to terrorism.

“There was obviously a foreign hand involved, and that is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its intelligence,” lawyer Sohrab Rahmati told reporters. “The perpetrators confessed to this and that they had meetings with officials on the border ahead of the assassination.”

According to Kakayi, the three who confessed said they were offered one billion tomans ($40,000) to do the job.

“In our view as the KDP-I, this is terrorism,” said KDP-I politburo member Mansour Mirwati. “It is not just a normal killing. Therefore we expect the Kurdistan judicial system and the court in Erbil to recognize the real perpetrators of this crime, which is the Islamic republic.”

Qadiri lived in Koya where Kurdish armed groups from Iran are headquartered. His body was found by Ranya police in a graveyard in Hartal. He had been shot 21 times. His party said the commander had been visiting one of their fronts, traveling in his personal car. KDP-I claimed that Qadiri’s murder was ordered by the IRGC.

The KDP-I is a Kurdish party that in 2006 split from the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI), which has waged an on-and-off armed war against the Iranian government since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.