A Baghdad court Thursday sentenced 11 Iraqis to death for their roles in the first of a series of audacious attacks last year to target government buildings in the heart of the city. The August bombings of Iraq's foreign and finance ministries were a major blow to Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki, who is seeking to reassure Iraqis his government has security under control ahead of crucial March elections. Iraqi Supreme Judicial Council spokesman Abdul-Sattar Bayrkdar said a criminal court in Baghdad's eastern Risafa district found the 11 defendants guilty of financing, planning and participating in the Aug. 19 bombings that devastated the foreign and finance ministries. The blasts killed more than 100 people. There have since been two other massive attacks in Baghdad primarily targeting government buildings, in October and December. Those attacks together killed more than 280 people and injured hundreds more. The attacks have sparked outrage among many Iraqis, shaking their confidence in the nation's tenuous security gains because they occurred in what are supposed to be some of the safest parts of the city. Bayrkdar said the defendants have a month to appeal the death sentences, which were handed down with Thursday's ruling. He declined to provide details about those convicted. Shortly after the August attacks, the Iraqi military released what it said was the confession of a Sunni man identified as a senior member of Saddam Hussein's ousted Baath Party. The military said the man admitted to supervising the attack against the finance ministry.
