Erbil court sentences student to death for killing lecturers

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - An Erbil court on Thursday sentenced a former university student to death for killing a faculty dean and a lecturer in the Kurdish capital last year, days after the victims’ families threatened to take matter into their own hands.

Aras Mahdi Qassim, a law major at Soran University, was arrested on June 28, 2022 for fatally shooting Idris Izzat, a well-known university academic, and Kawan Ismael, dean of the faculty of law at Salahaddin University, over an academic-related feud.

Brzo Saeed, the lawyer of the victims’ families, told Rudaw that on the case’s sixth court session on Thursday, two death sentences were issued for the suspect, adding that “carrying out of the execution awaits the signature of the Kurdistan Region’s president.”

The victims’ families held a press conference on Monday, saying that the court had “toyed” with their emotions through constant postponements of the sessions and delaying the ruling for nearly a year, they claimed the suspect’s father had threatened Izzat prior to the killing, for which he was arrested, but was released after only eight months.

“We knew from the start that the judiciary cannot implement its own procedures,” Peshraw Izzadeen, a representative of the families, told reporters, adding “we will take our revenge in accordance with the ways of God: Blood for blood.”

The academics’ death sparked strong reactions from top Kurdish officials and the public alike. Two days after the incident, Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani ordered the shutdown of all firearms selling markets and the confiscation of unlicensed weapons.

Weapon-related crimes are common in the Kurdistan Region where firearms, including sniper rifles and machine guns, are purchased on the black market. An estimated 70 percent of people in the Kurdistan Region own weapons.

Erbil saw 62 murders and 60 shooting incidents in 2022, according to data from the city’s police.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has also taken steps aimed at tightening gun control and containing gun violence since, calling on all citizens to register their firearms at the interior ministry by July 2023, otherwise they would be treated as illegal weapons.

The interior ministry announced on Wednesday that they had opened 48 centers to facilitate the registration of firearms before July 21.