Kurdish parliament issues amnesty: convicts on death row get 15 years in prison

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The Kurdistan parliament has decided in a majority vote to issue an amnesty to those on death row, reducing their sentence to a mere 15 years in prison, excluding those convicted of serious criminal charges.

Convicts who carry the death penalty will have their sentences reduced to 15 years in prison, excluding those who have been convicted of terrorism, threatening national security or murdering women in so-called honor killings, the Kurdish parliament stated following a closed session on Sunday.

Following the resignation of Kurdish President Masoud Barzani, the power to impose the death penalty has now been assigned to the KRG Prime Minister, Nechirvan Barzani.

The Kurdistan Region, unlike Iraq, rarely implements the death penalty. The last known case in which it had been carried out was in December 2016, when then President Masoud Barzani approved the execution of a man found guilty of raping and killing a female child in the Kurdish city of Duhok.