IRAQ: SUSPECT IN KILLING YAZIDI MAN, DAUGHTER SENTENCED TO DEATH IN DUHOK

October 9, 2022:

A court in Duhok on 5 October 2022 sentenced the suspect in the killing of a Yazidi man and his six-year-old daughter to death following a relatively swift hearing session during which the defendant admitted to the murders.
Duhok is the capital city of Duhok Governorate, Kurdistan Region in Iraq.
An internally displaced Yazidi man by the name of Faruq Mirza and his daughter Akheen were pronounced missing after leaving their residence in Zakho’s Cham Mshko camp in early August. Their bodies were found days later buried in a nearby farm.
Duhok police announced the arrest of the suspect over a week later.
The first hearing session was conducted on 5 October, with a verdict resulting in a death sentence being issued less than two hours later. The suspect reportedly admitted to killing both Faruq and Akheen in the court, adding that he regrets killing the daughter but not the father.
“My heart is a bit relieved… If they had given him [suspect] to me so I can hang him and tear him to pieces, I would have been more relieved,” Seve, Akheen’s mother, told Rudaw’s Ayub Nasri before the court.
The suspect claimed during his testimony that he and Faruq had gotten into a heated argument in the farm, prompting him to kill the Yazidi man and later Akheen as she kept crying.
“No matter what they do and what they do to him [suspect] we will never find solace, as whenever we say “Akheen” we are reminded of the pain in our hearts,” cried Akheen’s aunt.