SULAIMANI (ESTA) — The Iraqi presidency has approved more than 340 death sentences related to terrorist and criminal cases, state news agency INA reported late on Saturday.
INA cited an official in the Iraqi presidency as saying that the death sentences issued by the Iraqi specific courts were approved after legal and constitutional revision of the cases.
“Pardons could not be offered to them in accordance with General Amnesty No. 27 of 2016,” INA cited the official as saying.
“The presidency is continuing to ratify the verdicts received successively according to the established contexts, and it deals with this file with precision and caution,” the official added.
Iraq has put hundreds of suspected jihadists on trial and carried out several mass executions since defeating ISIS militants in a 2014-2017 U.S.-backed military campaign.
Human rights groups have accused Iraqi and other regional forces of inconsistencies in the judicial process and flawed trials leading to unfair convictions. Iraq says its trials are fair.
In November, Iraq hanged 21 convicted “terrorists” and murders, the latest in a series of mass executions it had carried out since defeating ISIS in 2017.
The European Union and United Nations called on Iraqi authorities to halt executions in the country.
Iraq ranks fifth among countries that carry out death sentences, according to Amnesty International, which documented 100 executions in the country in 2019. That amounts to one out of seven executions across the world last year.
That amounts to one out of seven executions across the world last year.
