Ministry: Iraq executes 38 on terror charges

Iraqi security forces with weapons and armoured cars attend an operation held to retake Mosul from Daesh on 20 February 2017 [Yunus Keleş/Anadolu]

The Iraqi authorities have executed 38 people convicted of terrorism, the Justice Ministry said in a statement yesterday.

“The authorities have hanged 38 people convicted of terrorism after the Presidency of the Republic ratified the sentences against them,” the ministry said in its statement. The convicts’ identities were not revealed.

Earlier in October, the Supreme Judicial Council in Iraq issued death sentences against 27 people accused of participating in the Speicher massacre which killed hundreds of military college students in Tikrit.

Authorities reintroduced the death penalty in 2004; it had been suspended after US forces invaded Iraq in the spring of 2003.

Read: Iraq executes 42 terrorists

In September, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Prince Zeid Bin Ra’ad Al-Hussein condemned the Iraqi authorities for carrying out the death penalties against 42 prisoners convicted of terrorism.

Bin Ra’ad expressed concern over reports that the Iraqi authorities may be planning to accelerate the execution of prisoners on death row, saying it could lead to more large-scale executions in the coming weeks.

He questioned whether the defendants were given fair trials.

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