Amnesty International Urges Halt to Executions

Amnesty International has documented 90 cases of death row inmates in Iraq who were convicted of terrorism or other crimes on the basis of “confessions” incriminating themselves that defendants say were coerced from them under torture while they were detained without access to lawyers or any contact with the world outside their place of incarceration. For further information please see the report Iraq: A Decade of Abuse and the following Amnesty International video titled “Iraq’s lethal confession culture”.

At least four of the 90 prisoners listed in the report were executed in April 2013, followed now by the nine men who had their death sentences carried out on 22 September.

Since the death penalty was reinstated in August 2004, at least 520 people have been executed in Iraq. According to an Iraqi Ministry for Human Rights report published earlier this year, Iraqi criminal courts have pronounced more than 2,600 death sentences between 2004 and November 2012.

The UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions have made repeated calls for the establishment of a moratorium on the death penalty in Iraq. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights stated in reaction to the execution of 21 prisoners on one day alone in April 2013: “The criminal justice system in Iraq is still not functioning adequately, with numerous convictions based on confessions obtained under torture and ill-treatment, a weak judiciary and trial proceedings that fall short of international standards. The application of the death penalty in these circumstances is unconscionable, as any miscarriage of justice as a result of capital punishment cannot be undone.”

(Source: Amnesty International)