THE bodies of prisoners murdered by Islamic State (Isis) authorities in Tikrit are being exhumed by forensic experts, an Iraqi government spokesman said yesterday.

Retrieving of corpses from mass graves in the city began on Monday.

The dead are thought to include hundreds of captured soldiers.

Over 1,700 government troops were caught when the city fell to Isis last year and the terrorist army later released videos showing its fighters executing many as they lay gagged and bound in ditches.

“We expect huge numbers of bodies to be unearthed,” said Human Rights Ministry official Kamil Amin.

“The work is continuing and we expect to discover more mass graves in different areas.”

Lab tests are being performed to link the bodies with DNA samples from relatives of those captured.

Another film posted online showed bound prisoners being shot in the head at the former Tikrit presidential complex of Saddam Hussein and then hurled into the River Tigris.

The government effort to retake Tikrit was backed by air strikes by a US-led coalition including a number of European and Middle Eastern allies.

But Isis remains in control of most of the territory it seized in Iraq last summer as well as large areas of Syria.

by Our Foreign Desk