An Iraqi court on Tuesday sentenced 18 police officers to prison for up to three years for failing to intervene when protesters stormed and set fire to the Swedish embassy in Baghdad. Iraqi security officials report this.
Supporters of powerful Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr set fire to the Swedish embassy in Baghdad on the night of July 19-20, after a Stockholm-based Iraqi refugee destroyed a Quran during a protest.
“The Iraqi authorities have an unequivocal obligation to protect diplomatic missions and diplomatic personnel under the Vienna Convention,” Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billström said at the time. “It is clear that the Iraqi authorities have seriously failed in this responsibility.”
The court for internal security forces in Baghdad recognized that obligation in Tuesday’s ruling. The eighteen officers were found guilty of “failing to perform their duties by allowing the demonstrators to attack the embassy,” the verdict stated. Eight police officers received prison sentences of three years, seven received two years and three months and three others were sentenced to one and a half years. According to the verdict, the officers involved in the case have been permanently excluded from the force.
Tensions
The destruction and burning of Qurans happened repeatedly in Sweden and Denmark last summer. This led to tensions between the Scandinavian countries and Muslim countries in the Middle East. Iraq punished Stockholm for allowing anti-Islamic protests involving desecration of Qurans by expelling the Swedish ambassador.
The Swedish authorities had allowed the demonstrations on grounds of freedom of expression. However, that permission was not equivalent to approving the destruction of the Koran, the Swedish government emphasized.
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