Iraq sentenced 27 terror suspects to death on Tuesday for participating in the Camp Speicher massacre in 2014 that killed at least 1,700 Iraqi Air Force cadets in the ISIS-controlled territory.
Libyan National Army kills 20 blindfolded 'ISIS fighters', sparking concern [GRAPHIC PHOTOS]
"The Central Criminal Court issued a verdict to execute 27 defendants convicted of participating in the Speicher massacre," Judge Abdul Sattar al-Beeraqdar, a spokesman for Iraq's Higher Judicial Council, said in a statement released by Iraq Central Criminal Court.
However, according to a CNN report, Beeraqdar has said that the decision is "preliminary and can be appealed". The decision of the court was based on Article 4 of Iraq's anti-terror law.
This is the second batch of death sentences passed in relation to the Speicher massacre committed by Islamic terror group (ISIS) members in 2014. In August 2016, 36 people were hanged at the Al-Hoot prison in Nasiriyah province in the south of Baghdad.
Meanwhile, the Iraq court had to release 25 suspects due to lack of evidence. The condemned men still enjoy the right to appeal against the sentences.
Camp Speicher massacre 2014
In 2014, at least 1700 Iraqi Air Force cadets including Shia and non-Muslim cadets were singled out and murderedby the ISIS militants from the camp located in Tikrit. While several of them were buried in mass graves, many of the bodies were pushed into the River Tigris.
raqi soldiers salute as they stand next to a mass grave for Shi'ite soldiers from Camp Speicher who have been killed by Islamic State militants in the presidential compound of the former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in Tikrit April 6, 2015. Iraqi forensic teams began on Monday excavating 12 suspected mass grave sites thought to hold the corpses of as many as 1,700 soldiers massacred last summer by Islamic State militants as they swept across northern Iraq.Reuters 
Iraqi forensic teams excavating 12 suspected mass grave sites thought to hold the corpses of as many as 1,700 soldiers massacred last summer by Islamic State militants as they swept across northernReuters 
Camp Speicher massacre in 2014Reuters
The mass graves containing decomposed corpses were discovered after the Iraqi forces recaptured the city in 2015.
The Iraqi Army, backed by US Forces, has wiped out ISIS from Mosul. The Iraqi government had declared their victory in July over ISIS militants' stronghold in western Mosul. Reports state that the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) is on the verge of seizing full control of the Raqqa's southern neighbourhoods.
