A Jewish man who has been imprisoned in Iraq for 11 years was released today following a coordinated international effort.
Israeli-Canadian Benjamin Hassin, now in his early 30s, was released from prison in Sulaymaniyah on Wednesday.
Hassin was born in Iraqi Kurdistan and immigrated as a child first to Israel and then to Canada, before again returning to Israel as a teenager.
In 2014, he is understood to have flown to Kurdistan to visit his grandparents. There, according to Yeshiva World News, he joined local Kurdish Peshmerga militia who were defending their towns from ISIS.
In 2015, on leaving for Israel, Hassin was allegedly accosted by a taxi driver who heard him speaking Hebrew, realized Hassin was Israeli, and threatened to kill him.
Hassin, who was armed, claimed he shot the driver in self-defense. The driver died a few days later from the injuries, and Hassin was arrested and charged with murder. He was also sentenced to death.
The matter of Hassin’s imprisonment was not publicly disclosed until more than a year later, when then-Deputy Minister for Regional Cooperation Ayoub Kara posted a video on social media saying he was working closely with Hassin’s father, Ilan Hassin, to secure his son’s release.
After that, international Jewish groups joined in to secure his release.
In November 2025, Hassin’s death sentence was annulled after a sulha agreement, and $250,000 in funds were raised at the request of the Iraqi authoriti