The two Iraqi Kurds were caught by Kurdish security forces before they managed to carry out the assassination attempt on Ahmad Mira, the court in the autonomous Kurdish region's second city of Sulaimaniyah was told.

"I am sorry that the sentence was too light. The court was not independent and was influenced by government parties," Mira, editor of Lafine magazine, told AFP.

The pair had plotted to kill the editor in October 2008.

In July 2008 the head of the magazine's office in the oil city of Kirkuk was assassinated in his home.