BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq’s prime minister approved sweeping disciplinary and legal measures against senior commanders in a paramilitary force after clashes with police at a government facility that left three people dead last month, his office said Saturday.
Gunmen descended on the agricultural directorate in Baghdad's Karkh district on July 27 and clashed with federal police. The raid came after the former head of the directorate was ousted and a new one appointed.
A government-commissioned investigation found that the former director — who was implicated in corruption cases — had called in members of the Kataib Hezbollah militia to stage the attack, Sabah Al-Numan, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, said in a statement Saturday.
Al-Sudani, who also serves as commander in chief of the armed forces, ordered the formation of a committee to investigate the attack.
Kataib Hezbollah is part of the Popular Mobilization Forces, a coalition of mostly Shiite, Iran-backed militias that formed to fight the Islamic State extremist group as it rampaged across the country more than a decade ago.
The PMF was formally placed under the control of the Iraqi military in 2016, but in practice it still operates with significant autonomy. Some groups within the coalition have periodically launched drone attacks on bases housing U.S. troops in Syria.
The Kataib Hezbollah fighters who staged the attack in Karkh were affiliated with the 45th and 46th Brigades of the PMF, the government statement said.
Al-Sudani approved recommendations to remove the commanders of those two brigades, refer all those involved in the raid to the judiciary, and open an investigation into “negligence in leadership and control duties” in the PMF command, it said.
The report also cited structural failings within the PMF, noting the presence of formations that act outside the chain of command.
The relationship between the Iraqi state and the PMF has been a point of tension with the United States as Iraq attempts to balance its relations with Washington and Tehran.
The Iraqi parliament is discussing legislation that would solidify the relationship between the military and the PMF, drawing objections from Washington, which considers some of the armed groups in the coalition, including Kataib Hezbollah, to be terrorist organizations.
In an interview with The Associated Press last month, Al-Sudani defended the proposed legislation, saying it’s part of an effort to ensure that arms are controlled by the state. “Security agencies must operate under laws and be subject to them and be held accountable,” he said.
Iraq's Prime Minister Mohammed al-Sudani speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in Baghdad on Monday, July 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
STARKE, Fla. (AP) — A man convicted of killing a 70-year-old grocery store owner was put to death Tuesday in Florida, becoming the second person executed by the state this year after a record 19 executions in 2025.
Melvin Trotter, 65, was pronounced dead at 6:15 p.m. following a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke for the 1986 stabbing death of Virgie Langford.
The curtain to the execution chamber went up at the scheduled 6 p.m. execution time. Trotter declined to give a last statement and the drugs began flowing about two minutes later. Trotter began to breath heavily and twitch about a minute afterward. Then his movements slowed about two minutes later.
The prison warden checked Trotter's face and shouted his name, but there was no reaction. A medic was then called in at 6:14 p.m. to check the inmate's vital signs and Trotter was declared dead a minute later.
The execution and another earlier this month in Florida follow the unprecedented 19 executions carried out by the state last year. In 2025, the Republican DeSantis oversaw more executions in a single year than any other Florida governor since the death penalty's reinstatement in 1976. The previous Florida record was eight executions in 2014.
According to court records, Trotter stabbed and strangled Langford on June 16, 1986, at her store in Palmetto near the southern edge of Tampa Bay. Afterward, a truck driver found Langford bleeding but alive on the back floor of the store, and she provided key details about her attacker before dying at a hospital.
Besides recalling Trotter’s physical appearance, Langford said he had a Tropicana employee badge with the name “Melvin” on it. According to court records, police later found a T-shirt with Langford’s blood type at Trotter’s home and the man’s handprint on a meat cooler at the store.
In 1987, Trotter was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. Then, after the state Supreme Court found the trial court erred in handling aggravating factors in his case, he again drew the death penalty at resentencing in 1993.
The Florida Supreme Court recently denied appeals to block the execution. Trotter's attorneys argued officials had mismanaged his death penalty protocols. They also said Trotter's advanced age of 65 merited exempting him from execution.
The U.S. Supreme Court denied Trotter’s final appeal Tuesday afternoon.
Separately, Justice Sonia Sotomayor raised questions about the state’s administration of lethal drugs. Trotter’s attorneys argued that Florida could “maladminister” the state’s protocol in a way that heightens the risk for a “mangled” execution in violation of the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.
Sotomayor wrote that, going forward, she hopes the state “will recognize the paramount importance of ensuring that it conducts executions consistently” with the proper protocols.
A total of 47 people were executed in the U.S. in 2025. Florida led the way with a flurry of death warrants signed by DeSantis. Alabama, South Carolina and Texas tied for second with five executions each last year.
Besides the two Florida executions this year, Texas and Oklahoma have conducted one execution each so far in 2026.
On Feb. 10, a man convicted of killing a traveling salesperson became the first person executed in Florida this year. Ronald Palmer Heath, 64, received a lethal injection for the 1989 killing of Michael Sheridan.
Two more Florida executions are scheduled next month starting with Billy Leon Kearse on March 3 and then Michael Lee King on March 17.
All Florida executions are carried out by injecting a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the Department of Corrections.
Hours before Tuesday's execution, Florida Corrections officials said, Trotter awoke at 3:20 a.m. and had one visitor during the day. He requested a meal that included fish, cornbread, cake and soda.
FILE - Clouds hover over the entrance of the Florida State Prison in Starke, Fla., Aug. 3, 2023. (AP Photo/Curt Anderson, File)
