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An
Iraqi man convicted of murder was sentenced to death
on Wednesday in Iraq's fourth scheduled execution
since authorities reinstated capital punishment,
banned since the 2003 US-led invasion.
Abed Saleh al-Issawi, a 24-year-old restaurant
employee, was accused of assassinating two policemen
and a finance ministry driver in January on the road
from Baghdad to the southern town of Kut, judge
Jaafar al-Ussi told AFP.
Issawi, a suspected member of a militant group
called Abu Abdullah, earned 100 dollars for the
killings, according to the court in Kut, a dusty
Shiite town 175 kilometres (110 miles) from Baghdad.
Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari announced last week
that the first post-Saddam Hussein executions were
to be carried out imminently in Kut for three men
convicted of murder, kidnap and rape.
The three men were accused of belonging to
Al-Qaeda-linked group Ansar al-Sunna and sentenced
to death in May, a verdict later approved by the
Supreme Council for Justice, the highest judicial
authority in Iraq.
Kurd Bayan Ahmad al-Jaf, a 30-year-old taxi driver,
as well as two Sunnis, Oudai Dawud al-Dulaimi, a
25-year-old builder, and Taher Jassem Abbas, a
44-year-old butcher, were condemned to death after
being convicted of killing and kidnapping policemen
and raping Iraqi women.
Those were the first death sentences to be announced
by Jaafari's government since capital punishment was
suspended by US authorities following the ousting of
Saddam Hussein.
Vice President Adel Abdel Mehdi was delegated to
sign the necessary decrees after the country's
president, Jalal Talabani, a longstanding opponent
of the death penalty, had refused.
The Iraqi government on Sunday defended its decision
to reinstate the death penalty following a United
Nations appeal for Baghdad to reconsider executing
the three convicted felons.
"(We) understand the position of international
organisations ... but we are faced with a reality in
Iraq where people are murdering, and what we want is
a sentence which punishes the hand that kills," a
government spokesman said.
The UN special envoy to Iraq, Ashraf Qazi, had urged
Baghdad not to go ahead with the executions.
"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,"
read a statement from Qazi.
It is not known how the government intends to carry
out the executions, but during Saddam's regime,
criminals used to be hanged, while disloyal soldiers
faced the firing squad.
Human rights groups said the executions could set a
precedent for sentencing when the high-profile
trials begin of former regime figures, including
Saddam.
The Iraqi Special Tribunal filed charges against
Saddam in late July over the 1982 killing of 143
residents of the village of Dujail, northeast of
Baghdad, where he had been the target of a failed
assassination bid.
The human rights group Amnesty International has
also condemned reinstating capital punishment in
Iraq.
AFP
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