“The suspect is described as a smuggler. He had tried to extort money from the young man in France when found out he had money on him. He [Marf] refused, and as a result, [the suspect] shot him twice and killed him,” Sarkawt Ahmed, Sulaimani police spokesperson, told Rudaw on Tuesday.
The unnamed accused man was handed over to Sulaimani police this week after he was arrested in Duhok province’s Zakho in the Kurdistan Region, according to a police statement. The suspect was detained under Article 406 of Iraq’s Penal Code.
The law stipulates a death sentence for any person found guilty of willfully killing another “if the offender uses brutal methods in the commission of the offense.”
The body of Marf, who was from Sulaimani, was found shot dead in the forests of France in February 2023. His family soon filed a complaint against a man referred to as a “smuggler,” based on the accounts of two eyewitnesses who said they saw him shoot Marf.
Tens of thousands of people from Iraq and the Kurdistan Region risk perilous routes to Europe every year, in hopes of escaping a lack of employment opportunity, political instability, and corruption.
