Iraq issues arrest warrant for Donald Trump over Soleimani killing

Name: Iran-US tensions soar as thousands mourn slain general Qassem Soleimani
Uploaded: 2021-01-07T14:30:15.000Z
Duration: 2 min 30 s
Description: Iran-US tensions soar as thousands mourn slain general Qassem Soleimani

The arrest warrant was for a charge of premeditated murder, which carries the death penalty on conviction. It is unlikely to be carried out

Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis were killed in a US drone strike on Baghdad’s airport last January

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US President Donald Trump ordered the strike that killed General Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in Baghdad last January. Photo: AP

Associated Pressin Baghdad

Published: 10:30pm, 7 Jan 2021Updated: 1:41am, 8 Jan 2021

An arrest warrant was issued on Thursday for outgoing President Donald Trump in connection with the killing of an Iranian general and a powerful Iraqi militia leader last year, Iraq’s judiciary said.

The warrant was issued by a judge in Baghdad’s investigative court tasked with probing the drone strike that killed General Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis outside the capital’s airport last January, the court’s media office said.

The strike on their motorcade was ordered by Trump, who later crowed that it had taken out “two [men] for the price of one”.

Al-Muhandis was the deputy leader of the state-sanctioned Popular Mobilisation Forces, an umbrella group composed of an array of militias, including Iran-backed groups, formed to fight the Islamic State terrorist group.

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Iran-US tensions soar as thousands mourn slain general Qassem Soleimani

Soleimani headed the expeditionary Quds force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The arrest warrant was for a charge of premeditated murder, which carries the death penalty on conviction. It is unlikely to be carried out but is symbolic in the waning days of Trump’s presidency.