Shafaq News/ Dozens in Nineveh were handed death penalties following a snitch testimony without further evidence, Sunni lawmaker Mohammad Nouri al-Abd Rabbu said on Tuesday.
In a statement to Shafaq News Agency earlier today, al-Abd Rabbu said, "I have obtained case files that belong to dozens of death row inmates who were convicted without any compelling evidence but an anonymous testimony by an informant."
"We will proceed with a huge investigation into this issue," he said.
Under the premiership of Nouri Al-Maliki (2006-2014), the Iraqi authorities cooperated with an army of secret informants to pass on intelligence in the Sunni areas infested by extremists and persons with suspicious ties to terrorist groups.
There is no available data on the number of persons detained per testimonies by informers, but NGOs and civil rights activists claim that they are thousands, most of whom were apprehended prior to the Islamic State's invasion of large swathes of Iraq's territory.
In many court records, the identity of those identified "witnesses" or "informers" is not disclosed, purportedly to protect family ties or out of fear of repercussions.
In 2014, after Haidar al-Abadi's cabinet installation, Chief Justice Medhat al-Mahmoud said that nearly 500 informers had supplied the court with unfounded or untrue accounts.
