August 20
IRAQ:
UN pleads against Iraq executions
The Iraqi government should back away from executing 3 prisoners under the
newly-reintroduced death penalty, says the UN representative in Iraq. The
three men are due to be executed in the central city of Kut in the next
few days for murder, kidnap and rape.
They would be the 1st prisoners to be executed since the overthrow of
Saddam Hussein 2 years ago.
The UN's Ashraf Qazi said he deeply regretted the reintroduction of the
death penalty.
"One should look at consolidating the right to life instead of imposing
the death penalty, which has a very poor recognised effect in deterring
crimes," said Mr Qazi in a statement.
The three prisoners - a Kurdish man and 2 Sunni Arabs - are thought most
likely to be killed by hanging, the method used under the old Iraqi
criminal law.
Opinion split
A decree authorising the execution was signed this week by Iraqi
vice-president Adel Abdel Mehdi.
The country's president, Jalal Talabani, who is opposed to capital
punishment, refused to sign the death warrants himself.
The BBC's Mike Wooldridge in Baghdad says a clear issue is whether any
executions now would set a precedent for the trials of leaders of the
former regime, including Saddam Hussein.
British officials say they will continue to lobby for the abolition of the
death penalty in Iraq.
In continuing unrest in Iraq, at least three Iraqi soldiers were killed in
the former insurgents' stronghold of Falluja on Saturday.
They died when a grenade was thrown at a patrol, a police captain said.
6 other members of the security forces died in unrest near the northern
town of Shorgat and in al-Amiriyah on the edge of Baghdad, said officials
quoted by the AFP news agency.
(source: BBC News)
