SULAIMANI (ESTA) — An Iraqi court on Monday sentenced a man to death on charges of killing a Kurdish family in Baghdad last year.
In October 2020, three members of a Kurdish family including parents and their daughter were found murdered at their house in Mansour neighborhood in Baghdad.
The Kurdistan Region Security Council announced it had detained Hussein Nasir, who was a guard of the Russian embassy, in Erbil over killing of the Kurdish family.
He confessed to the murder in a video released by the Kurdish counter-terrorism directorate, shortly before they handed him to Baghdad.
Al-akarkh court in Baghdad sentenced the man to death on Monday, according to relatives of the Kurdish family.
Mohammed Qadir, relative of the family, told Esta Media Network that the ruling was delayed due to several logistic reasons.
“But, the final decision was issued by court today, which was death penalty,” he said.
“No members of the criminal’s family attended the trial and no lawyer was ready to defend him,” he added.
In the confession video released by the counter-terrain directorate, Nasir, 36, said he had planned only to get money from the father, Dara Rauf.
“I have know Shilan’s father for four years,” said Nasir. “Two days ago, I needed some money because I was in debt.”
“I visited him in his apartment and I asked him to lend me a certain amount of money, but he refused saying ‘I do not have it’. There was a knife near me. I grabbed it and stabbed him. He fell to the ground. As I tried to remove the evidence of the crime, his wife returned,” Nasir added.
“I was in shock. She started to scream. I stabbed her as well. She fell to the ground,” he recounted.
“I took the bodies to bathroom and turned the taps on. At this point, Shilan returned and saw everything. I tried to call her down, but she wouldn’t . She hit me with over the head with an ashtray. I punched her twice and she fell. There was a pillow nearby, with which I suffocated her.”
Nasir said he started to search for money after he killed them, adding that he found around $10,000.
He then fled to Erbil by taxi after he left the house with the money, their cellphones and the knife he used to commit the crime.
He was arrested by the Kurdish security forces at a hotel in Erbil, where he tried to get a visa to leave the country.
