Iraq finally makes arrests over killing of anti-government protestors

Feb 15, 2021

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi announced on Feb. 15 the arrests in Basra of a group allegedly involved in the murders of Iraqi protesters and activists.

“The death squad that terrorized our people in Basra and killed innocents are now in the hands of our heroic forces [and] on their way to a fair trial,” Kadhimi tweeted. “We got the killers of Jinan and Abdulsamad, and we will get the killers of Reham, Hosham and all others. Justice will not sleep.”

Forty-nine-year-old Jinan Madhi Al-Shahmani, known as the “compassionate mother of the revolutionaries” for her work as a paramedic to all of the protesters, was killed in Basra by gunmen on Jan. 21, 2020.

Ahmad Abdessamad, a 37-year-old journalist working for Dijla TV, was killed on Jan. 10, 2020, alongside his cameraman, 26-year-old Safaa Ghali, in their hometown of Basra.

A source from the Iraqi security forces told Al-Monitor the four suspects have already admitted to assassinating the two journalists.