Iraq’s top appeals court quashed the conviction of a senior police officer jailed for the killing of protesters in 2019 in the south of the country, according to a verdict seen on Wednesday by AFP. Commander Omar Nizar, of Iraq’s elite rapid response unit, had been sentenced to life imprisonment in June 2023 over the deaths of about 20 protesters and the injuring of 190 others on a bridge in the southern city of Nasiriyah in November 2019. But the Court of Appeals has found there was “insufficient evidence” against Nizar. The anti-government protests that began in October 2019 and mobilised te…