The brutal execution of ‘gay couple’ by militants ISIS shocked the world (photo)

The extremist group of Islamic State (ISIS) threw two Syrian men off the top of a building in Palmyra city in the central Syrian province of Homs, after accusing them of being a gay couple, local sources reported on Wednesday. 

A masked ISIS militant carried out the death sentence against the supposedly “gay couple” after the decision was approved by the Sharia Court in Palmyra. 

Hawas Mohammed, 32, and Mohammed Salameh, 21, were brutally thrown off the top of a building in front of a crowd of people in central Palmyra. 

“An ISIS Sharia judge has asked both victims before their execution whether they felt satisfied with the group’s rule. One of the victims replied that he would have preferred to be killed by firing squad, but the judge responded that this way of execution (namely throwing the victims from the top of a building) will cleanse their sins,” an eyewitness told ARA News on the condition of anonymity.

“Then the masked militant threw Mohammed and Salameh off the top of the Wael Hotel’s building, which is the highest building in Palmyra city,” the source added.

Speaking to ARA News, human rights activist Ali Abbas said: “The incident is not the first of its kind and it will not be the last. We have documented the execution of at least 36 people at the hands of ISIS in the same way under the pretext they were gay.” 

“Sharia judges have been carrying out the same sentence for all those proved being homosexuals,” he added.

Abbas pointed out that ISIS aims to terrorize civilians by conducting all kinds of brutal punishments against those who break the group’s strict rules. 

“ISIS extremists carry out such executions in public in a bid to terrorize everyone,” he argued. 

In October, the radical group brutally executed two Syrian men in the eastern province of Deir ez-Zor, throwing them off a roof on charges of “committing buggery”, according to local activists.

The two men were allegedly a gay couple. They had been thrown off the roof of al-Hikma hospital’s building in Deir ez-Zor.

Also in October, the hardline group had executed two Iraqi men in the northwestern Iraqi city of Mosul for being gay. The ISIS militants brutally threw the two young men off a building’s roof under the pretext they were a gay couple. 

The ISIS-linked Sharia Court had issued a decision to execute every gay man by throwing him from the top of a building.

“Daesh accuses people of being gay only on basis of some superficial information without any investigation. Although the Islamic law bans homosexuality, but the brutal punishment by Daesh has never been witnessed throughout history,” civil rights activist Raed Ahmed told ARA News in an earlier interview, using the Arabic acronym for ISIS.