Finland Times

 

File Photo Lehtikuva.

The Kanta-Häme District Court sentenced a 23-year-old Iraqi man to one year and one month of conditional imprisonment for war crimes. The man appeared in a picture posted on Facebook with an enemy combatant’s head.

 

According to the indictment, the man committed the crime while serving in Iraq last spring. He was fighting against the extremist organisation ISIS.

 

Prosecutor Juha-Mikko Hämäläinen demanded a two-year sentence for the convict but, according to him, the prosecution does not have grounds for appeal. “The district court has spoken. The most important thing, in terms of prosecution, is that the punishment fits the crime. Imprisonment was sought after and obtained,” said Hämäläinen.

 

On February 19, another Iraqi man, aged 29, was sentenced for war crimes. The cases are similar, but the prosecutor has stressed that the two cases are wholly separate from each other. In that other case, the prosecutor demanded a two-year sentence for the convict, but the Pirkanmaa District Court handed down a sentence of one year and four months to the Iraqi.