Iraq’s antiterrorism law is a catchall that criminalizes membership in a terrorist organization, so the ISIS cook may face the same penalty as the bomb maker: life imprisonment or death. The law’s vagueness means that people are not held accountable for their specific crimes, human rights experts say. So if any of the defendants convicted this week committed murder, torture or rape, the subjects never arose in the trials.

Iraq is keenly aware of the spotlight and outfitted a new courtroom for the occasion. A panel of three judges, in black robes with white trim, sat on a platform beneath a flat-screen TV, which featured slick videos of the allegations against each suspect set to rousing music.

After Iraq’s 10-minute trials of Iraqi ISIS suspects last year, Judge Ali’s two-hour trials seemed unrushed and deliberate by comparison. He allowed the defendants and their lawyers ample time to present their cases. Sometimes he even stopped the lawyers from asking questions that could harm their clients’ defense.

However, he had no compunction about invoking the death penalty. Iraq ranked in the top five countries that most frequently carried out the death penalty in 2018, according to Amnesty International. Its liberal use of capital punishment appears to violate international covenants, which Iraq has signed, that reserve the death penalty for only the most serious crimes, like murder.

Some 514 foreign ISIS suspects were tried in Iraqi courts in 2018 and the first four months of 2019, according to the Supreme Judicial Council. A spokesman said the council did not have records of how many had received the death penalty or how many had been executed.

If any of the defendants convicted this week committed murder, torture or rape, the subjects never arose in the trials.