An Iraqi court has given a former police officer the death sentence for killing academic and government security adviser Hisham al-Hashemi, on May 7. Ahmed Hamdawi Oueid was found guilty by a Baghdad criminal court under Iraq’s counter-terrorism laws, and his sentence is subject to appeal.
Oueid did not offer any response to the ruling, according to a lawyer who was present in the proceedings, while the media was kept away from the court session. Hashemi, who was a well-respected academic and expert on jihadist groups, was shot dead by gunmen on motorcycles outside his home in Baghdad in July 2020.
The killing sparked outrage across Iraq and drew condemnation from the United Nations and several Western countries.
One year after the murder, Iraqi state television aired the alleged confession of the mastermind behind the attack, which identified him as Ahmed Hamdawi Oueid al-Kenani. Hamdawi, a police lieutenant at the time, admitted to shooting Hashemi with a pistol and leading the group that killed him.
A security source in 2020 claimed that the suspect in Hashemi’s murder had links to Kataeb Hezbollah, a powerful pro-Iranian group that Hashemi had previously criticized in his writings and media statements.
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