Najaf court sentences five drug traffickers to life in prison

NAJAF — The Najaf Criminal Court on Sunday sentenced five convicted drug traffickers to life imprisonment, according to Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council.

In a statemen, the judiciary said the defendants were found in possession of methamphetamine with the intent to traffic and sell the narcotic to users.

The court issued the sentences under Article 27(First) of Iraq’s Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law No. 50 of 2017, the statement said.

The sentences come as Iraq faces a deepening drug crisis. The country has evolved from a transit corridor into both a consumer market and redistribution hub, with traffickers increasingly using sophisticated cross-border networks and, in some cases, GPS-equipped balloons to move drugs across the Anbar border.

Iraq’s judiciary issued 26 death sentences against drug traffickers in the first quarter of 2026 alone.

Between January and August 2024, courts issued 140 death sentences and 500 life sentences in trafficking cases, with 3,006 arrests recorded in the first quarter of 2025.

In late May, Iraq’s General Directorate for Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances Affairs said it dismantled four criminal networks involved in drug trafficking in Basra governorate and arrested 14 suspects.