Iraq: three years after the death of researcher Hisham Al-Hashemi, a policeman found guilty and sentenced to death

Researcher Hisham Al-Hashemi was killed on July 6, 2020 by men on motorcycles outside his home in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. On Sunday May 7, nearly three years after his death, an Iraqi criminal court convicted a policeman, Ahmed Hamdawi Oueid, of his murder and sentenced him to death, the Supreme Judicial Council said in a statement. The convicted person can still appeal, a judicial source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Hisham Al-Hashemi was an internationally recognized specialist in jihadist movements and a respected figure in Iraqi civil society. His death sparked outrage in Iraq and was condemned by the United Nations (UN) and many Western capitals.

“Environment of Fear”

The latter was regularly consulted by many Iraqi chancelleries and political figures, and had briefly held positions of adviser to certain security services.

Mr. Al-Hachémi had notably taken a position in favor of the anti-power uprising launched in the fall of 2019, a movement which denounced corruption in the country, demanded a total overhaul of the political system and castigated the Iranian stranglehold on Baghdad.

The movement, which had mobilized tens of thousands of people in the country, was bloodily repressed, with more than six hundred people killed and thousands more injured. Subsequently, dozens of activists had been victims of assassinations, assassination attempts or kidnappings.

A year after the researcher’s death, the Iraqi Prime Minister announced arrests, and state television broadcast the “confessions” of the 36-year-old man presented as the main perpetrator of the assassination, now convicted, engaged in law enforcement since 2007.

At the time of Ahmed Hamdawi Oueid’s arrest in July 2021, a security source interviewed by AFP assured that the policeman was considered close to the Hezbollah brigades, one of the most powerful groups forming Hachd al-Chaabi, coalition of former pro-Iran paramilitaries now integrated into the regular forces.

In the summer of 2022, the UN mission in Iraq still deplored an “environment of fear and intimidation” in the Iraqi public space, listing several incidents “aimed at suppressing all dissent” and “perpetrated by ‘elements unidentified armed men”.