Iraq militia chief condemned to death for Karbala killings

0 Comments | AFP, August, 2008

KARBALA, Iraq (AFP) — An Iraqi court on Saturday condemned to death a senior leader of the Mahdi Army Shiite militia over a killing spree last year that left 52 people dead in the central shrine city of Karbala.

The Karbala appeals court sentenced Ali Sharia, the local chief of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's militia wing, to death by hanging, a statement read out by the court said.

"The evidence against the defendant was abundant," said presiding judge Abed Alnour al-Fatlawi. "He also confessed to the crimes."

Karbala, home to some of Shiite Islam's holiest shrines, was the scene of a bloodbath during a major pilgrimage last August when suspected Mahdi Army militiamen clashed with police in street battles that left 52 people dead.

Police in...