Scale and cycle of Iraq’s arbitrary executions may be a crime against humanity: Special Rapporteurs

GENEVA (27 June 2024) – The Government of Iraq’s systematic executions of prisoners sentenced to death based on torture-tainted confessions, and pursuant to an ambiguous counterterrorism law, amount to arbitrary deprivation of life under international law and may amount to a crime against humanity, human rights experts said today.

“We are alarmed by the high number of executions publicly reported since 2016, nearly four hundred, including 30 this year, and the explicit political commitment to continue implementing death sentences, in total disregard to the reported irregularities in the administration of justice, cases of enforced disappearances, and torture-tainted confessions, which led to these unfair sentences,” the Special Rapporteurs said.

With an official record of 8,000 prisoners on death row in Iraq, the experts said that when arbitrary executions are on a widespread and systematic basis, they may amount to crimes against humanity, engaging criminal responsibility of any official involved in such acts, either directly, or by acquiescence.

Retentionist States, such as Iraq, are not released from their obligations under international law, which restricts the application of the death penalty to the “most serious crimes”, meaning intentional killing.

“We insist that most of the crimes detailed in articles (2) and (3) of the Counterterrorism law no.13 of 2005 and based on which persons are being sentenced to death, fail to meet the threshold of the ‘most serious crimes’, rendering these executions arbitrary in nature,” the experts said. “The alleged political use of death sentences, mainly against Sunni Iraqi males, is deeply troubling.”

Not only are death row prisoners subjected to severe psychological pain and suffering due to the lack of information about the date of execution, but they are also reportedly tortured and suffer other forms of ill-treatment in the notorious al-Nasiriyah prison, including lack of access to adequate food and clean drinking water. They are also denied medical care for serious and infectious diseases, leading to premature deaths in custody.

“We are horrified by the scores of reported deaths in al-Nasiriyah prison due to torture and deplorable conditions of detention,” the experts said. “We remind the Government of Iraq of its responsibility for prisoners’ deaths, under international law, until such responsibility is refuted, through a thorough and impartial investigation, in compliance with relevant international standards, manifested in the Minnesota Protocol on the Investigation of Potentially Unlawful Death (2016).”

The experts again urged the Iraqi Government to immediately halt all executions, ensure a fair retrial for prisoners on death row, particularly those accused of terrorism-related offences, and promptly initiate thorough and impartial investigations into all allegations of enforced disappearances, and torture and ill-treatment, in accordance with international standards. The results of such investigations must be publicly available.

The experts have shared their concerns with the Government and confirm their willingness to work with the Iraqi authorities with a view to ending these violations, bringing perpetrators to justice and providing reparation to victims and their families.