Walid Yunis Ahmad

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Walid Yunis Ahmad is an Iraqi television journalist from Zakho who is of Turkmen ethnicity. He was arrested in Erbil on February 6, 2000, and held for 11 years without trial. In March 2011 he was sentenced to five more years in prison.

Before his arrest, he worked as a program organizer and translator for a radio and television station, reporting in Kurdish, Arabic, and Turkmen. Amnesty International says the station may have been connected to the opposition Islamic Movement of Kurdistan.

Ahmad says that on the day of his arrest he was in a car with someone after a meeting of the Islamic Movement; the police stopped and searched the other car and found explosive material, and arrested him.

He was detained for ten years without charges or trial; his family did not know where he was for the first three years. In 2008, after a visit, his family learned he was in poor health from a hunger strike. Ahmad says he was tortured by security forces.

Secret informants later linked him to explosives found in Dohuk in 2009, though he had been detained for nine years. In January 2011 formal charges were filed, and in March 2011 he was convicted.

Amnesty International says the trial was unfair and that the charges were likely made up to justify long detention. They named him a "priority case" and called for his immediate release.