Iraqi Court Sentences to Death Terrorist Who Killed Russian Diplomat in 2006

BAGHDAD (Sputnik) - The Central Criminal Court of Iraq sentenced a terrorist, who was accused of murdering a Russian diplomat in 2006, to death by hanging, the spokesman of the Supreme Judicial Council of Iraq, Abdel Sattar Birkadar, said in a statement obtained by Sputnik on Monday.

"The Central Criminal Court sentenced to death one of the terrorists who was accused of murdering one of the Russian diplomats in Iraq in 2006," Birkadar said.

According to the spokesman, the accused plead guilty in the abduction of four foreigners within an armed group. The terrorist participated in the execution of one of the diplomats, and then, together with the armed group, got rid of the bodies, throwing them into the Tigris River.

The attack on employees of the Russian Embassy in Baghdad was committed on June 3, 2006. As a result, a Russian diplomat Vitaly Titov died. The attackers kidnapped and then killed the embassy's third secretary Fyodor Zaitsev, as well as the employees of the diplomatic mission Rinat Agliulin, Anatoly Smirnov and Oleg Fedoseev.

One of the kidnappers of Russian diplomats, member of al-Qaeda*, was captured on December 19, 2006. He acknowledged his involvement in the abduction and is believed to have beheaded two of the diplomats. The mastermind of the kidnapping was killed during a clash with US troops in October 2008. Another terrorist accomplice, al-Qaeda member, was sentenced by the Iraqi authorities to death in May 2010. The testimony given by them helped the intelligence services to find the bodies of the killed employees of the Russian embassy, which were found in April 2012.

* al-Qaeda — a terrorist group, banned in Russia