Amnesty Condemns Rise in Iraqi Executions

Iraq is now the fourth highest user of the death penalty in the world, an Amnesty International report said today.

The campaign group, which condemned the executions, said there had been a rapid acceleration in its use since the current Iraqi government took control in 2004.

More than 270 people have been sentenced to death and at least 100 people, including Saddam Hussein, are reported to have been executed since capital punishment was reinstated that year.

The death penalty had been suspended after US-led troops invaded the country in 2003.

Amnesty said only three countries - China, Iran and Pakistan - executed more people.

"This represents a profoundly retrograde step - one that should not be overlooked simply because far larger numbers of lives have been lost due to ongoing violence," the London-based organisation's report concluded.

No executions were reported in 2004, while three men were executed in 2005. Last year, figures increased dramatically, with at least 65 people, including two women, reported to have been executed by hanging.

Saddam and three of his associates were among those given death sentences at the end of 2006. At the time, Amnesty said the executions were carried out after a trial which "failed to meet international fair trial standards, and an appeal process which was fundamentally flawed".

Amnesty said it was concerned that the death penalty was being increasingly imposed following "unfair trials before other Iraqi criminal courts, including the central criminal court of Iraq".

The report said two protections often given to those convicted of serious crimes were being denied in Iraq, with those sentenced to death by the Supreme Iraqi criminal court unable to be pardoned or have their sentences commuted.

"It was entirely predictable that the restoration of the death penalty would perpetuate and exacerbate the abuse of human rights and come to be seen, as in the case of Saddam Hussein's execution, as an instrument of vengeance far removed from any notions of justice," the report said.

Amnesty is also campaigning to stop child executions in Iran

The group said at least 24 offenders under the age of 18 were currently on death row in the country, and four people aged under 18 were executed last year.