Baghdad – Following a decade-long Haredi-led campaign, Benjamin Hassin, a Kurdish-Iraqi Jew, has had his death sentence officially overturned. Hassin, imprisoned since 2015, was sentenced to death in 2020 after a taxi driver died during a confrontation in northern Iraq.
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The death sentence of a Jewish man detained in Iraq has been annulled: Senior Middle East Correspondent @ariel_oseran breaks it down on Middle East Now with i24NEWS anchor @natasharaquel_ pic.twitter.com/kz1AJZM27L
— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) November 13, 2025
Hassin had returned to Iraqi Kurdistan in 2014 to visit his elderly grandparents amid ISIS attacks. While helping local Kurdish forces defend towns, he was confronted by a taxi driver who threatened to hand him over to ISIS. A struggle ensued, leaving the driver fatally injured and leading to Hassin’s arrest and conviction.
The Haredi community spearheaded the campaign, with rabbis, legal experts, and activists raising $250,000 for a settlement that can commute death sentences. Rabbi Chaim David Yosef Weiss (the Chid”u) of Antwerp traveled to Kurdistan to oversee the agreement with local tribal elders.
Again it is Satmar who helped a Jew regardless how Frum that person is or wherever he lives.
Like Rav Meir Shapiro explained the Gemarah that says You are called “Odom” the Umos aren’t called Odom. When any part of a person is in pain, the whole person feels it, so too, when one Jew is in pain, all the rest of the Jews feel along. This is a uniquely Jewish phenomenon, because on a soul level, we are all connected. There’s one expansive Nishmas Yisroel.