Four drug traffickers sentenced to life in Maysan

MAYSAN — Maysan Criminal Court on Thursday sentenced four drug traffickers to life imprisonment after authorities seized nearly 6 kilograms of narcotics in their possession.

According to a statement from the Supreme Judicial Council, the defendants were arrested with 5.7 kilograms of methamphetamine intended for distribution and sale among users.

It added that the ruling was issued under Article 27/First of the Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances Law No. 50 of 2017.

Iraq’s judiciary issued 26 death sentences against drug traffickers during the first quarter of 2026, the Interior Ministry said.

Earlier this month, Iraq’s Central Criminal Court sentenced five individuals to death after convicting them of drug trafficking, according to a statement from the judiciary.

Iraq has faced growing narcotics challenges, evolving from a transit corridor into both a consumer market and redistribution hub, with traffickers increasingly using sophisticated cross-border networks and, in some cases, aerial methods such as GPS-equipped balloons to move drugs across the Anbar border.

Courts have responded with severe penalties — between January and August 2024, judges issued 140 death sentences and 500 life sentences in trafficking cases, with 3,006 arrests recorded in the first quarter of 2025 alone.