An Iraqi court sentenced to death on Monday an Islamic State group member convicted of plotting a 2021 bomb attack in a crowded Baghdad market that killed 32 people.
It was the city’s first major suicide bombing in three years, bringing an end to a period of relative calm following Iraq’s declaration of victory over the jihadist group in late 2017.
The unnamed man was found guilty of planning the January 2021 twin suicide bombing at Baghdad’s Tayaran Square market, which injured 110 people.
A Baghdad court has sentenced the attack’s “primary perpetrator”, the Supreme Judicial Council said in a statement.
He had confessed to being part of IS since 2012 and to having equipped the two suicide attackers.
In the attack, one man drew a crowd by claiming to feel sick before he detonated his explosives belt, the interior ministry said at the time.
As more people flocked to the scene to help the victims, the second suicide bomber set off his explosives.
Iraq frequently hands down death sentences, usually for terrorism or murder convictions.
Amnesty International’s 2021 death penalty report ranks Iraq near the top worldwide in terms of death sentences and executions.
The London-based rights group recorded at least 17 executions in Iraq in 2021, down from 50 the previous year, but said death sentences “rose more than threefold from 2020”.
In April, eight people were sentenced to death in two trials, four over a car bombing and four for murder.
The last major IS attack in the capital came in July 2021, when a bomb ripped through the crowded Al-Woheilat Market in the Sadr City suburb, killing more than 30 people.
According to a January UN report, the IS group has “maintained the ability to launch attacks at a steady rate in Iraq, including hit-and-run operations, ambushes, and roadside bombs.”
Last week, three teenagers and three police officers were killed while putting out a crop fire in northern Iraq, an attack blamed on IS jihadists.
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