IRAQ. MAN SENTENCED TO DEATH OVER BOMBING OF UN HEADQUARTERS

an Iraqi court tried and sentenced to death a man allegedly linked to Al Qaeda who confessed to the 2003 truck-bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad. The attack killed 22 people, including UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Sergio Vieira de Mello.
"They have condemned and sentenced to death the person that was held responsible for the bombing on 19 August 2003 which saw Sergio Vieira de Mello and other colleagues from the UN killed," Gianni Magazzeni, head of the UN human rights office in Baghdad, told a briefing in Geneva.
"That individual, who is allegedly a member of the Al Qaeda network from Mosul, an Iraqi national, is now appealing that death sentence," he added. The man's name was not immediately available. Magazzeni said the president of the Iraqi central criminal court had informed him of the ruling.
"He apparently said he had been paid to organise the bombing," he added. The US military said in December that Iraq had issued an arrest warrant for Mullah Halgurd al-Khabir, naming him as the prime suspect for the attack. It was not clear whether Khabir was ever arrested and was the same man put on trial and condemned.