Amnesty International criticizes Iraq's implementation of 13 death sentences

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[size=52]Amnesty International criticizes Iraq's implementation of 13 death sentences[/size]

[size=45]Iraqi authorities should immediately halt all executions, Amnesty International said today, following the execution of at least 13 men on 22 April in Nasiriyah Central Prison, in the southern Dhi Qar governorate, following their conviction on very broad and vague terrorism charges.[/size]
[size=45]Amnesty International is concerned that many more people may have been executed in secret amid a worrying lack of transparency regarding executions carried out in Iraq in recent months. Security sources had previously confirmed to the media the execution of 13 men on 25 December 2023 – the first mass execution recorded since November 2020. But activists and lawyers representing death row prisoners told Amnesty International that dozens of additional people had been killed. They have been executed since April 10, adding that the authorities did not give advance notice to the prisoners, or to their families and lawyers.[/size]
[size=45]“The recent executions in Iraq are horrific and depressing,” said Razao Salehi, Iraq researcher at Amnesty International. “For years, Iraq’s justice system has been plagued by a legacy of human rights violations and abuses, leading to thousands of people being sentenced to death after grossly unfair trials.”[/size]
[size=45]“Executions carried out following trials that do not meet international human rights standards may amount to arbitrary deprivation of life. The Iraqi government must immediately impose an official moratorium on executions and work to abolish the death penalty in its entirety.”[/size]
[size=45]Of the men executed on April 22, 11 were convicted on the basis of their membership in the armed group called Islamic State. Lawyers for the other two men executed on 22 April told Amnesty International that they had been convicted of terrorism-related charges under the Penal Code following a grossly unfair trial, and had been detained since 2008. Lawyers and relatives of the two men said they had been tortured and then forced to sign documents that they were not allowed to read. . The lawyer said that a judge later informed them that the documents were confessions and sentenced them to death. The two men filed a request to be retried because they allege that their confessions were extracted under torture. Amnesty International has seen documents issued in 2020 by the judicial committee tasked with reviewing these requests, which said that a review of the two cases could not be conducted under the law because the case files had been lost.[/size]
[size=45]“The fact that two of the executed men may have been denied the opportunity for a fair trial and their cases not reviewed because their files were lost is absolutely cruel and terrible,” Razao Salehi said. “The use of the death penalty is appalling in all circumstances, but the carrying out of executions following grossly unfair trials highlights the cruelty of this injustice.”[/size]
[size=45]Their lawyer told Amnesty International that they were “tortured into ‘confessing’, and the authorities want to attach the stigma of terrorism to them.” They [the authorities] lost their files and executed them as if they were not important.”[/size]
[size=45]Two lawyers told Amnesty International that around 150 people were at imminent risk of execution after their death sentences were reportedly ratified by President Abdellatif Rachid. According to official court documents seen by Amnesty International, on October 22, 2023, the Federal Court of Appeal asked the Office of the Presidency to ratify the death sentences issued against 51 people. There are believed to be more than 8,000 prisoners on death row in Iraq.[/size]
[size=45]Information available to Amnesty International indicates that an unspecified number of prisoners were executed on 6 January. In addition, one activist told Amnesty International that a family member of a prisoner on death row in Nasiriyah said that guards had taken at least 12 prisoners out of their cells in mid-April and never returned them, and that the guards later informed the rest of the inmates in those cells that They can take the belongings of the men who were removed. Amnesty International is concerned that these men may have been executed.[/size]
[size=45]On 21 February, Amnesty International sent two letters to the Office of the Presidency of the Republic of Iraq and the Ministry of Justice respectively, requesting information on the number of death sentences ratified, the ratification process, the number of executions carried out, as well as the measures taken to guarantee the basic rights of those facing execution. This includes providing due notice to prisoners, their families, and their lawyers before execution. However, the organization has not received a response yet.[/size]
[size=45]Background
Amnesty International has consistently documented flaws in Iraq's judicial procedures that deprive prisoners of a fair trial. Iraqi courts routinely accepted torture-tainted “confessions” into evidence and sentenced people to death based on those confessions, and routinely failed to investigate allegations of torture. Defendants were denied legal representation or had a court-appointed lawyer whom they were unable to meet in private. Thousands have been convicted on broad and vaguely worded terrorism charges.[/size]
[size=45]The organization has also documented serious concerns regarding overcrowded and inhumane detention conditions in Nasiriyah Central Prison, where individuals on death row are held, as well as allegations of torture and other ill-treatment, and denial of medical care. There have been dozens of deaths in prison custody, which lawyers and relatives of individuals sentenced to death have told Amnesty International were a result of those conditions.[/size]
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