According to a Baghdad- Rasafa Court of Appeal verdict dated November 5, 2024, the Criminal Court decided to release the three suspects due to lack of evidence, dropping all charges against them. 

The surprising court decision comes after in early July, the Iraqi and Kurdistan Region interior ministries in a joint press conference referred to three blindfolded suspects in yellow jumpsuits as the perpetrators of burning Chale bazaar in Duhok, Qaysari bazaar in Erbil and the Khan Qidar bazaar in Kirkuk, all in the span of less than two months. 

The two ministries at the time accused the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) as “the planner and executor” of the arsons, an accusation the PKK denied shortly after.

A total of 107 shops and stores were destroyed in the May 19 arson at the Ottoman-era Khan Qidar bazaar in Kirkuk, causing over two billion dinars in damage. 

“The government itself must know how dangerous these people in our society are if they walk free,” Hogir Farhad, representative of the Khan Qadir bazaar shopkeepers, told The New Region. “If they are released, they may burn down another place, tomorrow.”

Farhad said the suspects have already “confessed to committing the crime.”

Another angry shopkeeper whose livelihood has been destroyed since the May arson said they would block roads and hold massive protests if the suspects are released. 

“We will block roads and not sleep at all,” Rebwar Omer said. “We will set up tents and go on sit-in strikes.”

For his part, Mustafa Qasim, another shopkeeper believes the suspects must “definitely have backing” from authorities.

The Turkmen Front has also come on the line on the matter at hand, calling on Iraq’s Ministry of the Interior to disallow the release of the suspects. 

“We believe there are a lot of pressures and political interferences to release these suspects from some parties, because the suspects are members of the Sulaimani security forces,” Qahtan Wandawi, head of the Kirkuk Branch of the Turkmen Front, told The New Region, referring to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) which administratively rules the Sulaimani province. 

Two of the arson suspects had been described as members of the PUK’s 70 Unit Force by the KRG and Iraqi interior ministries.

The PUK at the time said the suspects had already been expelled from the military force and the party. 

The Kurdistan Region witnessed a large number of large and small-scale blazes around the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024, mostly involving local and traditional marketplaces in Duhok, Erbil, and Kirkuk provinces, causing millions of dollars in damage.