IRAQ: APPEALS COURT UPHOLDS DEATH SENTENCE FOR SULAIMANI MAN WHO KILLED WIFE AND CHILDREN

Erbil’s Court of Appeals has upheld a death sentence for a man who burned his wife and three children to death in December 2018 in Sulaimani province, the victims’ lawyer told Rudaw on 19 April 2021.
"I have been informed today that the Erbil Court of Appeals has ordered the execution of Sewan Qadir's husband," Kosalan Hamalaw told Rudaw on 19 April, urging Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani to sign off on the decision. 
While death sentences are handed down in the Kurdistan Region, their implementation is restricted to extreme circumstances only.
Kurdish law requires the president to sign off on the death sentences before they can be carried out.
Sewan Qadir, 23, and her three children aged five, two and one, died after her husband, Diyar Majid, set their house alight in December 2018. The children died at the scene and Qadir succumbed to her injuries about a week later.
Before her death, Qadir accused her husband of the murders.
"We thank God that the criminal has received his death sentence. The Erbil court today sentenced the killer of Sewan and her three children to hanging, and we hope that his sentence will be carried out as soon as possible," her brother Shawna Qadir told Rudaw on 19 April.