Iraq: Eight people executed and 45 at risk of imminent death

On 20 October, the Iraqi president's office announced that it had approved the death sentences of 53 people, of which five are nationals of Arab countries, without setting the date of their executions. Eight of them, including Badr Mohamed Ali, a 29-year-old Moroccan national sentenced to death in 2008, were executed on 27 October 2011. The 45 others condemned to death following unfair trials are in danger of being executed at any moment.

Among the living prisoners are Yousri Al-Tariqi, Fraj Allah, Adel Mohamed Ali and Nasser Mojib, nationals of Arab countries detained at Sussa prison in Suleimaniya (Kurdistan in Iraq) and sentenced to die between 2006-2010.

Yousri Al-Tariqi is a Tunisian national who was arrested on 5 May 2006 in Salaheddine province in northern Iraq by Iraqi security forces. He was sentenced to capital punishment on 10 October 2010 on the basis of confessions extracted under torture. Mohamed Fraj Allah and Adel Omar Ali are 28 and 29 respectively and Libyan nationals. Nasser Mojib is a 24-year-old Saudi national. The three men were sentenced to death in March 2007, October 2006, and March 2009 respectively after manifestly unfair trials. Regarding the 41 Iraqis also sentenced to death and whose executions were approved by the president's office, our organization has yet to obtain their identities so we cannot report on them.

Despite the commitment undertaken by the Iraqi President Jalal Talabani to abolish the death penalty, death sentences continue to be approved by his two vice presidents Tarek Al-Hashemi and Khudayr Al-Khuzaieor, to whom he delegated this power. Last September, the spokesman for the High Judicial Council announced that 338 death sentences had been handed down in 2001 and that three had been executed.