IS executes four in Iraq for homosexuality

Members of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group publicly beheaded four young people on charges of homosexuality in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Monday.

A local administration official, Mohamed al-Faris, told Efe news agency that the jihadis summoned the inhabitants of al-Rashidia district, located in northern Mosul, to watch the execution of four young people, all aged between 20 and 30 years.

Homosexuality is largely forbidden in countries that enforce Islamic Law; severe interpretations consider it a crime deserving of imprisonment, and in some, such as Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen, it is an offence punishable by death.

According to al-Faris, the IS religious judge, identified as Taha Yasine, publicly pronounced the capital punishment for the four accused, which was execution by beheading, after they were caught practising homosexuality.

The IS jihadis slew the four youths with knives, al-Faris recounted, while chanting religious slogans and shouting "God is great", pointing out that some citizens tried to flee the scene after witnessing the event.

The horrifying scene is not an isolated one, as on January 6, IS jihadists killed four young men accused of homosexuality, aged between 18 and 26 years, by throwing them off a tall building across the street from a government building in Mosul.

The IS has proclaimed the establishment of a "caliphate" in the territories under its control in Iraq and in neighbouring Syria, under which it has imposed an extremely hardline interpretation of Islamic law.