ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — An Erbil court on Monday convicted five people in the assassination of a Kurdish commander of an Iranian opposition party. They will be sentenced in August, according to a lawyer in the case.
Qadir Qadiri, a commander in the Kurdistan Democratic Party-Iran (KDP-I), was found dead in March 2018 in Hartal village, Ranya district, near Sulaimani’s border with Iran.
Five people were convicted of murder in connection with his assassination on Monday at Erbil’s Criminal Court second branch, Ayad Kakayi a lawyer in the case told Rudaw English, who would like to see them charged with terrorism.
“We asked this conviction to be changed to the terror law, because according to documents and their confessions, it’s a terrorist act. Because if an intelligence agency from another country terrorizes someone like martyr Qadiri, that’s terrorism, not willful killing,” he said.
Three of the people convicted in the killing confessed they were offered a large sum of money “by a foreign country” to assassinate Qadiri, according to Kakayi.
A source who was present at the trial told Rudaw English that the assassination was ordered by Iran.
The other two denied involvement in the killing, but, Kakayi said “they are guilty. They’re a woman and a man.”
The mastermind in the plot is Osman Faqe Malaki, Kakayi said, adding he was even “unfortunately” present at Qadiri’s burial and funeral.
The three who confessed said they were offered one billion tomans ($40,000) to do the job, Sohrab Rahmati, another lawyer on the case, told reporters in a press conference on Monday. The two who denied involvement were present at the scene and when Qadiri was lured away into going to the location and kidnapped, he added.
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 Qadiri killing was ordered by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Sentencing was postponed to August 2 because compensation Qadiri’s child is yet to be decided and needs to be determined by an expert before a judge can make the final ruling.
“We are expecting the Erbil Criminal Court-2 to issue a decision as big and as dangerous as this crime committed against political personnel in [Kurdistan Region],” said Rahmati.
