IRAQ: GOVERNMENT ANNOUNCES ITS DESIRE TO CANCEL DEATH PENALTY

November 21, 2013: Iraqi Ministry of Human Rights announced a desire to cancel the death penalty imposed on those convicted of this provision, while point to its desire to implement international resolutions, which insures the protection of people in the country.
Minister of Human Rights, Mohammed Shiyaa al- Sudane said in a statement during a meeting with a member of the House of Lords in Britain, Baroness Helen Kennedy, who is visiting Iraq that "law of Iraqi penal punishes on 48 crimes by death sentence as the sentence does not apply today in Iraq, but on those convicted of terrorist crimes."
"There is a serious desire by the government to suspend the death penalty," adding that " the preparation of the victims exceeded 70000 killed and 15000 missing as a result of the terrorist attacks which put pressure on the government, along with popular demands to impose punishment on those terrorists and murderers, knowing that the judiciary of Iraq is keen to apply the death penalty according to legal grantees and minutes procedures."
He pointed out that teams of the Ministry and continuously visit prisons abruptly and interview prisoners in private and if it was proved that there was any violation on the right of any prisoner, a complaint would be submitted to the public prosecution and the imposition of disciplinary sanctions that reaches sometimes to jail, this procedure has already been applied against some officers and guards prisons." (Sources: zawya.com, 21/11/2013)