Chasdei Hashem: Canadian-israeli Man Freed After 11 Years in Iraqi Kurdistan Prison

After more than a decade behind bars and years facing the possibility of execution, Canadian-Israeli Binyamin ben Limor Chasin has been released from prison in Iraqi Kurdistan, bringing a remarkable international campaign to secure his freedom to a successful conclusion.

Chasin, a dual Canadian-Israeli citizen of Kurdish origin, had been imprisoned since June 2015 following a fatal encounter with a local taxi driver.
According to accounts given by Chasin and his family at the time, Chasin had traveled to the region to visit his grandparents and subsequently volunteered with a local force fighting ISIS.

During a taxi ride while on leave, Chasin was speaking Hebrew on his phone when the driver allegedly realized that he was Jewish and Israeli. Chasin's family said the driver threatened to kill him or hand him over to ISIS.

According to Chasin's account, he fired at the driver in self-defence. Contemporary Israeli reporting said the driver was critically wounded and died several days later in hospital. Chasin was subsequently arrested and charged with murder.

The precise circumstances of the encounter were difficult to independently establish, and reports at the time attributed the self-defence account to Chasin and his family.
His case attracted attention in Israel as early as 2017, when a major fundraising effort sought to arrange a traditional reconciliation agreement with the victim's family. Israeli officials, including then-minister Ayoub Kara, became involved in efforts to prevent Chasin from receiving the death penalty.

Despite those efforts, Chasin remained imprisoned and was ultimately sentenced to death by hanging in 2020.

A major breakthrough came years later, when approximately $250,000 was secured for a formal reconciliation agreement, known as a sulcha, with the deceased man's family.

In November 2025, the agreement was presented to a Kurdish court, paving the way for a judge to annul Chasin's death sentence and reduce his punishment.

But his ordeal was still not over.

Despite the cancellation of the death sentence, Chasin remained behind bars for months as askanim and legal advocates worked through additional legal and bureaucratic hurdles to secure his actual release.

Those efforts have now succeeded.

Reports on Wednesday, September 16, confirmed that Chasin has finally been released after approximately 11 years in captivity and is expected to make his way to Israel, where he will be reunited with family.

Among those heavily involved in the later campaign were Avraham (Alan) Lowy, who personally traveled to Iraqi Kurdistan in connection with the case, together with Monsey-area askanim Hershel Gottdiener, Shimon Rolnitzky, Meir Tzvi Tauber and Shlomo Landau.

Prominent attorney Alan Dershowitz had also previously joined efforts advocating on Chasin's behalf.

Chasin's story stretches back more than a decade — from fighting ISIS in the region where he was born, to a fatal encounter with a taxi driver, imprisonment, a death sentence, an extraordinary international fundraising and legal campaign, and ultimately the cancellation of that sentence.

Now, after 11 years behind bars, Binyamin ben Limor Chasin is finally free.