“The use of the death penalty in such circumstances carries the risk of grievous and irreversible miscarriages of justice since innocent people may face execution for crimes they did not commit. Far from providing justice to the victims of acts of violence and terrorism and their families, miscarriages of justice merely compound the effects of the crime by potentially claiming the life of another innocent person and by undermining any real justice that the victims and families might have received.” the report states.
Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Iraq Nickolay Mladenov expressed deep concern about the scale and extent of the use of the death penalty in Iraq.
“The large numbers of people who are sentenced to death in Iraq is alarming, especially since many of these convictions are based on questionable evidence and systemic failures in the administration of justice,” Mladenov said. “I call upon the Government of Iraq to reconsider its position on the imposition of the death penalty.”
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein urged the new Government in Iraq to make a commitment to address the serious shortcomings in the criminal justice system in the country.
“The new Government in Iraq is facing many serious security challenges, and it is more urgent than ever that the rule of law is reinforced and firmly entrenched in the country,” Zeid said. “Given the weaknesses of the criminal justice system in Iraq, executing individuals whose guilt may be questionable merely compounds the sense of injustice and alienation among certain sectors of the population, which in turn serves as one of the contributing factors that is exploited by extremists to fuel the violence. I call on the new Government to impose a moratorium on the use of the death penalty.”
Mladenov and Zeid jointly called on the Government of Iraq to impose a moratorium on the use of the death penalty as a first step towards its abolition, in line with UN General Assembly resolutions.
In Iraq, death sentences are applicable to a range of offences, including acts of terrorism, crimes against the “internal security of the State”, crimes affecting the “external security of the State”, kidnapping, rape, drug trafficking where death results, prostitution, and “aggravated” murder.
Under international law the death penalty can only be applied for the most serious crimes and after the most stringent fair trial safeguards. “Most serious crimes” has been consistently interpreted by human rights mechanisms as murder and other forms of intentional killing. However, this provision should not be invoked to delay or prevent abolition of the death penalty, according to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Since 2007, the United Nations General Assembly has adopted a series of resolutions calling on States that retain the death penalty to “establish a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty”. The most recent of these resolutions was adopted in 2012.
(Source: UN)
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