Nasiriyah prison chief denies document on amnesty for Speicher massacre convicts

DHI QAR — The director of Nasiriyah Central Prison, Hussein Ahmad Baniya, on Wednesday denied the authenticity of a document circulating online that claimed several inmates convicted in the 2014 Speicher massacre were included in Iraq’s general amnesty law, calling the document “forged.”

Baniya said the phrases “convicted in the Speicher crime” and “included in the amnesty law” were later additions and not part of any official communication. “The document is fabricated and has no relation to any official correspondence issued by the prison administration,” he said in a statement.

He explained that transferring inmates to court for retrial procedures under the general amnesty framework is “a normal legal process” and “does not mean their release or inclusion under the law.” Baniya confirmed that none of the inmates mentioned in the document have been released.

Earlier this week, political analyst Zaidoun al-Salmani discussed the controversy in an interview with Al-Rabaa TV, referring to an official document that reportedly involved the transfer of 12 inmates sentenced to death for their role in the Speicher massacre from Al-Hoot Prison to their home governorates in Salah al-Din and Kirkuk for retrial. “These procedures are lawful under what is known as the conditional amnesty law,” al-Salmani said.

The Speicher massacre occurred in 2014 when ISIS captured more than 1,700 Iraqi Air Force cadets near Tikrit and executed them after seizing the city. The killings became one of Iraq’s deadliest atrocities during the group’s territorial expansion, which was eventually reversed by Iraqi and Kurdish forces with U.S.-led coalition support.

Since its amendment in early 2025, Iraq’s General Amnesty Law, originally enacted in 2016 to address wrongful convictions and arbitrary detentions, has led to the release of more than 35,000 inmates, according to the Supreme Judicial Council. The law excludes those convicted of terrorism, violent crimes and drug offenses but allows retrials in certain cases to correct judicial errors.