Iraqi tribunal sentences former Baathist lieutenant over Barzani genocide case
An Iraqi tribunal has sentenced a former Baath-era security official to death over the Barzani genocide case, a decision that revives one of the most painful episodes of Saddam Hussein’s campaign against Kurds and brings a long-running prosecution one step further into view on 2025-12-28.
According to The New Region, the person sentenced is Shakir Taha Ghafoor, described as a lieutenant in the Baathist security forces. The case’s lawyer said another suspect, Saadoun Sabri Jamil, was released because there was not enough evidence. The ruling was delivered by the Iraqi High Tribunal, which has handled cases arising from crimes committed under the Baath party’s rule.
The case concerns the disappearance of members of the Barzani tribe in 1983. The report says Iraqi regime forces abducted an estimated 8,000 Barzanis from the Zagros Mountains and later executed them in the deserts of southern Iraq, burying the victims in mass graves. The killings formed part of the wider Anfal campaign against the Kurdish population, which the source says resulted in more than 182,000 Kurdish deaths and the destruction of thousands of villages.
The decision matters not only because of the sentence, but because of how long justice has taken to move. The lawyer quoted in the report said the development marked the first time perpetrators of the genocide, who had confessed to the crimes, were brought to legal justice. The same report said the legal team had submitted the names of 61 suspects to the tribunal so far.
The Barzani case has been legally recognized before. The Iraqi High Tribunal ruled in May 2011 that the crimes against the Barzani population amounted to genocide and crimes against humanity under Iraq’s law on war crimes. That earlier finding created the legal foundation for later proceedings, but the recent sentence shows that individual accountability is still being pursued decades after the original crimes.
The report also noted that Kurdish officials have repeatedly sought compensation for victims’ families and that the remains of thousands of victims have still not been found. Those unresolved questions continue to shape the case’s political and human weight.
This latest ruling therefore sits at the intersection of memory, law and state violence. For the families of the missing and the wider Kurdish community, it is another reminder that the legal aftermath of the Anfal era remains unfinished, even as courts continue to name suspects and issue sentences tied to events from the early 1980s.
