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The gravestone of an unidentified man found dead in a trench in Gogjali and buried by residents.

In 15 of the cases, local armed forces told a foreign journalist that the men were extrajudicially killed by government security forces who had them in custody under suspicion of Islamic State (also known as ISIS) affiliation. In the remaining cases, reported by local and international sources, the sites of the apparent executions all in government held territory raise concerns about government responsibility for the killings. A foreign journalist also said that a government official told them that a Sunni Popular Mobilization Forces (known as the PMF or Hashd al-Sha'abi) unit, which is part of the government forces working to retake Mosul, was responsible for the extrajudicial killing of 25 men in their custody and dumping the bodies in the Tigris River.

Extrajudicial executions during an armed conflict are war crimes and if widespread or systematic, carried out as part of policy, would constitute crimes against humanity.

On May 13 and 15, 2017, two groups of aid workers and a foreign journalist said that they saw groups of corpses, 15 bodies in all, by the side of a road between the village of Athba and town of Hammam al-Alil, about 15 kilometers south of west Mosul. The area is entirely under the control of Iraqi government forces. One group said they had driven past the area a day earlier and the bodies had not been there, suggesting they were killed on May 12 or 13.

Local armed forces at the nearest checkpoint told the journalist that they saw Iraqi security forces bring the men to the area and shoot them. The journalist observed many bullet casings in the area on May 15. The journalist found an identity card on one of the bodies and confirmed with a contact within the National Security Service, a security body under the ultimate control of the prime minister, that the name was on their government database of about 90,000 people wanted for ISIS-affiliation.

Human Rights Watch obtained seven photos of the bodies at the site, which show the corpses in various lying and kneeling positions, all blindfolded with their hands bound with plastic handcuffs or fabric.

Human Rights Watch shared these photos with Stefan Schmitt of the International Forensic Program at Physicians for Human Rights, who said that there were no indications that the bodies were dragged or placed in the locations, such as drag marks or shifting of clothing. The positioning of at least two of the bodies was consistent with kneeling prior to execution and then falling forward, he said, and he concluded that it was likely the victims were executed in the place they were found.

An officer of the PMF 90th Brigade told Human Rights Watch over the phone that his forces were holding detainees in bathrooms of abandoned homes in Safina, a village 20 kilometers north of Qayyarah, along the Tigris River, and said they had business with the men they were holding. He said no visitors were allowed at the detention sites. On May 21, a foreign journalist told Human Rights Watch that a government official informed them that the 90th Brigade was holding alleged ISIS affiliates in the same village. According to the journalist, the official said the 90th Brigade had been holding detainees there for at least four months, and he personally knew of at least 25 detainees held there whom the 90th Brigade had executed and dumped into the river.

In several other cases, bound and blindfolded corpses of men whose bodies bore signs of being executed were found in government held parts in and around Mosul, aid workers and journalists told Human Rights Watch.

At the end of April 2017, an aid worker visited the morgue at Qayyarah hospital that had reopened about two months earlier. Human Rights Watch reviewed a photo the aid worker took inside the morgue of a large pile of bodies. On the top of the pile was a man who had been shot. He was lying chest down, with a blindfold and with his hands bound with plastic handcuffs. Human Rights Watch visited the hospital in mid-May and two head doctors told researchers that they had received orders from the health and defense ministers that they were not to respond to any information requests on the morgue, or allow any visitors. They did not provide a reason, but said it was a red line.

In late January, another foreign journalist showed Human Rights Watch pictures of the bodies of two bound men in a residential neighborhood of east Mosul fully under the control of Iraqi forces that he had taken two days earlier. Residents said they knew nothing about the identities of the men or circumstances of their death. Also in late January, Human Rights Watch interviewed a resident of the outskirts of Gogjali, a suburb of east Mosul, who pointed out a spot where he had found the body of a blindfolded man in the mud next to a trench. He and neighbors had buried the body. He said he knew nothing about the mans death or identity.

If Iraqi authorities want civilians who spent over two years living under ISIS to feel safe and protected, they need to ensure that anyone responsible for murdering prisoners is brought to justice, Fakih said.

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Iraq: Dozens Found Handcuffed, Executed in, around Mosul ... - Human Rights Watch