Baghdad: Iraq executed 230 people from 2005
to 2009 and a further 1,200 have been sentenced to death, a
government spokesman said on Tuesday.
Ali al-Dabbagh's remarks were in response to a UN report
that said 12,000 people had been sentenced to die in Iraq
since the 2003 US-led invasion, which the UN has since
admitted was a typographical error.
"According to Iraqi judicial reports, there have been a
total of 1,254 death sentences, where there is still the
option to appeal, and there were 230 executions between 2005
and 2009," he said in a statement.
Iraq's supreme court said in January that the country
executed 77 people last year, all of whom were convicted of
terrorism-related offences.
In December, London-based human rights group Amnesty
International said Iraq had executed at least 120 prisoners in
2009, and a further 900 remained on death row.
In its report, Amnesty urged Baghdad to stop the
executions of all people condemned to death, adding "some are
likely to have been sentenced after unfair trials."
Baghdad reintroduced the death penalty in 2004, after a
brief moratorium immediately after the US-led invasion of
2003. Those sentenced to death are usually hanged.
PTI
First Published: Tuesday, July 27, 2010, 23:23