BAGHDAD — Iraqi authorities have executed at least 60 people so far in 2014, a United Nations report said Sunday, expressing concern that “irreversible miscarriages of justice” were taking place in some death penalty cases.
Nickolay Mladenov, the U.N. special envoy to Iraq, urged the Iraqi government to reconsider its position on the implementation of the death penalty. Mladenov said the high number of executions in Iraq is “alarming, especially since many of these convictions are based on questionable evidence and systemic failures in the administration of justice.”
The U.N. report said the figure accounted for executions carried out during the first nine months of 2014. In comparison the United States, which has a population more than 10 times larger than Iraq’s, has executed 30 people so far in 2014, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
The death penalty, used under longtime dictator Saddam Hussain and briefly cancelled after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, was restored in Iraq in 2005. Hanging is the primary method used, and death sentences are applicable for a range of offences, including acts of terrorism. As of August 2014 some 1,724 Iraqi prisoners were awaiting execution, according to the U.N. report, citing Iraqi justice ministry figures.
Meanwhile, a suicide bomber set off his explosive belt near a Shiite mosque in Baghdad’s western district of Harthiya, killing 18 people, mostly Shiite worshippers, and wounding 32 others, said police officials.
