ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — A Kurdish policeman from the Kurdistan Region’s Garmiyan administration was executed by the Islamic State (ISIS), a family member confirmed to Rudaw English on Sunday.
Jalal Baban, a policeman from a village near Qara Tapa in Diyala province, was kidnapped by ISIS in November 2019 while cultivating farmland with his cousin Hassan Bali, who was later released after his family paid $57,500.
ISIS released a video of Baban’s execution on Saturday. His cousin Ziyad Faiaq confirmed his death, but said the video is said to be six or seven months old, according to information from the police.
He also refuted a statement given to Rudaw from Garmiyan’s police force on Saturday, claiming Baban was executed after his family failed to meet demands from the terror group.
“My uncle had kissed his [ISIS gunman] hand and told him ‘I will give you $10,000’ but they refused to give him back, then he said ‘I will give you $100,000,’ but they told him ‘we will not give him back even if you fill the face of earth with money’ because he is a policeman,” Faiaq told Rudaw English on Sunday.
“They had no other demands. They told us they will release him in exchange for that woman, but they lied to us,” said Faiaq.
Ten months into his captivity, Baban was forced to send voice messages to his family.
In one message, he called on them to persuade authorities to release the wife of an ISIS leader in custody of the Erbil authorities, saying the exchange was his only chance of survival.
“We didn’t hear from him after that,” Faiaq said. “We had no contact with him.”
The woman ISIS was fighting to free was a Yazidi woman forced to marry an ISIS leader, the group reportedly told his family.
Hela Mahlo, from Gir Ozer in Shingal, was one of thousands of Yazidi women taken captive by ISIS militants in August 2014 when the terror group overran the area, launching genocide against the small ethno-religious community.
In 2019, she was arrested by Kurdish security forces in Kirkuk and held for one year and seven months in an Erbil prison. Authorities said they did not know she was Yazidi. Her case rose to prominence and she was released in August 2020 to reunite with her family.
Kurdish authorities have consistently said they do not negotiate with terrorists and that no prisoner exchange has taken place between the Region and ISIS or any other similar extremist group.
Additional reporting by Aso Fishagi
