In a crime that shocked Baghdad, brothers killed their sister after learning that she was in a relationship with an Iraqi young man. A security source in Baghdad reported that "a 21-year-old girl was killed at her lover's house, who had proposed to her several times but was rejected. It was found that there were signs of a break-in at the lover's house, with the girl's blood present in his bedroom."
The source added, "After searching the victim's house, a gun was found, and her brothers were arrested and handed over to the Diyala Bridge police station, while the lover was detained."
Honor crimes for reasons related to restoring family honor in the eyes of society are prevalent in Iraq, amidst a significant lack of authority, legal action, and educated elites to combat such acts. In this context, legal expert Ali Al-Tamimi previously stated in a press release that "the crime of honor killing allows for the killing of a woman under Article 409 of the Penal Code if she is caught in adultery by one of her relatives, and the punishment can be mitigated, even leading to a suspended sentence (i.e., conditional acquittal)."
He added, "However, if the opposite occurs, and a woman catches her husband and kills him, she is tried under the intentional murder statute, Article 406, which could result in the death penalty. Therefore, we see that this provision contradicts Sharia, and it can be challenged in the Federal Court as it violates Article 2 of the Constitution, which stipulates that legal texts should not contradict Islamic Sharia."
Al-Tamimi noted, "I have observed during my time in the judiciary that many honor killing or revenge crimes are legally reclassified from Article 406, intentional murder, to Article 409, honor killing, or Article 411, unintentional homicide, because the relatives of the victim apply the saying 'the living are more important than the dead.' Even if the investigator or judge knows the details of the crime, they do not rule based on personal knowledge but on the available evidence, which is always inclined towards exonerating the accused."
He emphasized that "many of these crimes bury their truths with their victims, which in my opinion encourages the proliferation of these crimes due to the absence of deterrence—one of the main objectives of criminal punishment—along with the fact that many of these crimes occur under the influence of alcohol and drugs."
