Ahmad Abdulrazzak Basha Kazim is an Iraqi daily worker who resides in Baqubah, Diyala Governorate, Iraq.
In 2007, Kazim was arrested by U.S. forces in mass arrests in Iraq and later released in 2010. After his release, he was not provided with a document stating that he had been released from the detention centre. His family therefore believes that there is still a security record against him, which could be a reason for his arrest later in 2012.
On 28 September 2012, Kazim was arrested by members of Diyala Anti-Crime Office in his family home in Jurf Al Maleh district in Baqubah, Iraq. The officials did not present him with an arrest warrant nor did they inform him of the charges against him at the time of his arrest.
His family believes that the initial reason for his arrest was confessions obtained through torture from another detainee “Ammar Shaker Mahmoud”. The latter was co-sentenced alongside Kazim in 2020, based on charges of setting up explosive devices.
During the first 30 days of his detention, Kazim was held incommunicado and placed in solitary confinement. During the first three days, he was interrogated and subjected to torture by members of the Anti-Crime Office. In 2016 and later in 2018, he was also subjected to acts of torture.
Most notably, he was subjected to electric shocks, flogging with electric cables, hanging by the hands, severe beatings on the head, shoulder and feet, and was kept in the toilet for a whole day by members of Diyala Anti-Crime Office. To stop the torture, Kazim was forced to sign a document confessing that he had set up explosive devices with others. Kazim was then held in various Iraqi detention facilities.
On November 21, 2017, Kazim was acquitted of the terrorism charges by the Second Chamber of the Diyala Criminal Court (case 1). Due to the confessions he had made under torture, he was not released as he was facing new charges.
In a second case, the First Chamber of the Diyala Criminal Court sentenced him to life imprisonment (20 years) in addition to a 15-year sentence on the basis of the 2005 Anti-Terrorism Law No. 13 on February 20, 2020.
On April 8, 2021, Kazim’s lawyer submitted a request for a retrial pursuant to the General Amnesty Law No. 27 of 2016. On May 25, 2021, the first central committee that deals with the implementation of the General Amnesty Law found the request admissible but rejected the request on the merits that the legal evidence against him was sufficient.
On August 8, 2021, he was acquitted of terrorism charges by the Third Chamber of the Karkh Criminal Court in a third case.
In 2023, two new cases were opened against him by investigative judges for terrorism offences. To this day, he has not been tried for those two cases nor informed of the full list of charges. He is currently detained at the Al Nasiriyah central prison (also called Al Hoot prison).
On July 11, 2023, MENA Rights Group seized the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) asking the UN experts to issue an Opinion as to the arbitrary nature of his detention.
The WGAD issued Opinion No. 57/2023 on November 13, 2023, in which it found Kazim’s detention to be arbitrary and lacking a legal basis. The Opinion highlighted that Kazim had not been presented with an arrest warrant nor informed of the reasons for his arrest at the time of his arrest, that he was not brought promptly before a judge, and that he was held in incommunicado detention for 30 days and placed in solitary confinement. Furthermore, the WGAD held that Kazim’s “right to a fair trial and to due process are of such gravity as to give his deprivation of liberty an arbitrary character”, raising that he was initially detained for over 5 years without any explanation justifying the delay, that he had been denied his right to legal assistance, and that his confessions were extracted under torture. The WGAD concluded by calling on Iraqi authorities to release him immediately and “accord him an enforceable right to compensation and other reparations”.
