40 sentenced to death over Iraq massacre

Forty men have been sentenced to death in Iraq following the 2014 massacre of hundreds of army recruits at the hands of the Islamic State group.

Members of the Iraqi security forces work at the site of a mass grave containing the remains of people believed to have been slain by jihadists of the Islamic State (IS) group at the Speicher camp in the city of Tikrit, on April 12, 2015. Source: Getty Images

An Iraqi court sentenced to death 40 men for their role in the massacre of hundreds of army recruits by the Islamic State extremist group in the summer of 2014.

Dubbed the Camp Speicher massacre, the killings were the worst of numerous atrocities during a rapid June 2014 offensive that saw Islamic State militants seize much of Sunni Arab northern and western Iraq as security forces collapsed.

"The Central Criminal Court in Baghdad acquitted seven other defendants in the case for the lack of evidence," Abdul Sattar Biriqdar, spokesman for the High Judicial Council, said in an online statement on Thursday.

It was not immediately clear whether the verdict could be appealed.

An Iraqi man kisses a body-bag lying amidst other bags containing the remains of people believed to have been slain by jihadists of the Islamic State (IS) group lie on the ground at the Speicher camp in the Iraqi city of Tikrit, on April 12, 2015. Source: Getty Images

Islamic State said at the time that it had executed 1700 Shi'ite soldiers who had surrendered to the Sunni jihadist group after fleeing Camp Speicher, an airbase near the city of Tikrit.

It said 800 Sunni troops had been "pardoned." However, Human Rights Watch estimated that 770 soldiers had been killed.

Photographs published by the extremist militia showed large groups of young men being rounded up, driven in the backs of trucks to fields, and then made to lie on the ground in rows as gunmen apparently opened fire on them.

A video later revealed other men being hustled to a riverside one by one, beaten, shot in the head and thrown in the water.