Iraq executes 11 convicted of ‘terrorism’

BAGHDAD: Iraq has executed 13 people including 11 convicted on charges relating to “terrorism”, the justice ministry said Monday.

They included individuals responsible for car bombings, “killings of security forces personnel” and kidnappings, it said in a statement, without specifying dates, locations or other details of the attacks.

The executions are the first since the beginning of the year in Iraq, which according to rights group Amnesty International put to death at least 111 people in 2017. On December 15, 38 people sentenced under Iraq’s terrorism law were hanged in the country’s Nasiriyah prison. Three months earlier, 42 others were hanged at the same prison. Iraq faces regular criticism from diplomats and rights groups over death sentences handed down almost daily under its terror laws. Some 20,000 people were arrested during a years-long offensive by Iraqi forces battling to retake swathes of the country from the Islamic State group.