Ajaj al-Tikriti: top court makes death sentence for Anfal genocide crimes final

BAGHDAD — Iraq’s Federal Court of Cassation on Thursday upheld the death sentence against Ajaj Ahmed Hardan al-Tikriti for genocide and crimes against Kurdish detainees at the Nugra al-Salman prison during the Anfal campaign, making the verdict final. The sentence now awaits a presidential decree before it can be carried out.

The court’s president, Judge Saad al-Lami, told the Iraqi News Agency the sentence was upheld because al-Tikriti’s responsibility for genocide targeting unarmed Kurdish civilians had been established. He said the file would be referred to the presidency for a decree approving the execution.

Al-Lami said al-Tikriti had committed grave crimes against detainees at Nugra al-Salman, including starvation, denial of water, torture and the rape of a number of women, which formed the basis of the conviction.

An Iraqi court sentenced him to death on May 14 for crimes at the prison during Anfal, with survivors and relatives of victims present at the Baghdad hearing. He was arrested in Salah al-Din governorate in August 2025 after more than six months of intelligence work; relatives had for years spread claims that he had died, in an apparent effort to mislead security agencies, before investigators located him. Around 300 legal complaints were filed against him by victims’ relatives from Chamchamal, Garmian and Halabja.

The Anfal campaign was carried out between February and September 1988 as a systematic genocide by the Baath regime against Iraq’s Kurds. Human Rights Watch estimated that 50,000 to 100,000 Kurds were killed; Kurdish sources put the figure as high as 182,000. Nugra al-Salman prison, built in 1930 in Muthanna governorate, was one of the main detention sites for Kurdish civilians in the 1980s and remains among the most recognized symbols of repression under the Baath, which ruled Iraq from 1968 until the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.