The Supreme Judicial Council of Iraq said Tuesday (July 3rd) that 15 al-Qaeda members, who confessed to having burnt 32 civilians and security personnel to death in Baghdad, were sentenced to death.

"Witnesses testified and the convicts themselves confessed to their crime," the council said in a statement.

The defendants took the passengers, including civilians and security personnel, from a bus on a desert road, placed them in a hole, covered them in benzene and burned them alive in September 2007, the statement said.