1969 Baghdad hangings
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| 1969 Baghdad hangings | |
|---|---|
 Front-page photos of the hangings published in Al-Jumhuriya | |
| Location | Baghdad, Iraq |
| Date | 27 January 1969 |
Attack type | Mass hanging |
| Victims | 14 dead |
| Perpetrators | Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party |
On 27 January 1969, Iraqi authorities hanged 14 Iraqis for allegedly spying for Israel during a public execution in Baghdad; nine were Jewish, three were Muslim and two were Christian.[1][2]
The lopsided defeat suffered by the Arab states, including Iraq, against Israel in the June 1967 Six-Day War further increased discrimination against Iraq's remaining Jews: "They were dismissed from government jobs, their bank accounts were frozen and they were confined to house arrest, among other restrictions."[1]
In July 1968, the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party took control of Iraq in a bloodless coup. The new government was weak and was in constant fear that it would itself be the target of a coup. After the Israeli Air Force struck an Iraqi military position in northern Jordan on 4 December 1968 in retaliation for the shelling of Israeli communities in the Galilee, the Ba'athist regime began "hunting down an American-Israeli spy ring it said was trying to destabilize Iraq." The authorities began arresting alleged conspirators shortly thereafter, including twelve Jewish men from Baghdad and Basra.[1]
By 1969, Iraq's Jewish community had shrunk from more than 130,000 in 1948 to less than 3,000 due to mass emigration caused by the establishment of the State of Israel, the subsequent Arab-Israeli wars, and anti-Jewish persecution.[1]
Hangings
Baghdad Radio invited citizens to Liberation Square on January 27 to "come and enjoy the feast",[3] being brought in on buses.[2] 500,000 people reportedly attended the hangings, and danced and celebrated before the corpses of the convicted spies.[1]
Nine of the fourteen hanged were from the Iraqi Jewish community, three from the Muslim community and two from Christian communities. Three other members of the Iraqi Jewish community that were arrested at the same time were executed seven months later, on 26 August 1969.[1]
Victims
Hakham Salman Debi, cantor of the Meir Taweig Synagogue, recorded the name of the victims of the hangings in a handwritten list, which was appended to a Jewish prayer book. This prayer book, along with the attached pages, is currently kept by the library of the Babylonian Jewry Heritage Center.[4] The names of the victims were:[5]
Jewish
- Ezra Naji Zilkha (51 years old)
- Na’im Khedhouri Hilali (19)
- Daoud Heskel Dalal (16)
- Hesqal Saleh Hesqel (17)
- Sabah Haim Dayan (30)
- Daoud Ghali Yadgar (23)
- Yaqoub Gourji Namerdi (38)
- Fouad Gabbay (30)
- Charles Rafael Horesh (44)
Muslim
- Jamal Sabih al-Hakim (of Jewish descent)
- Abdul Mohsin Jarallah
- Muhammad Abdul Hussain Nur Gita
Christian
- Zaki Andraus Zitou
- Albert Habib Thomas
