NEW U.N. CHIEF AGAIN URGES STAY OF IRAQI EXECUTIONS

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, dogged by charges he was softening UN opposition to capital punishment, weighed in again on the issue on January 6, urging a stay of executions in Iraq. Ban's chief of staff, Vijay Nambiar, wrote the Iraqi authorities urging "restraint by the government of Iraq in the execution of death sentences imposed by the Iraqi High Tribunal," Ban spokeswoman Michele Montas said in a statement.
Ban, a South Korean who took office as the United Nations' eighth secretary-general on January 1, had previously said capital punishment was up to individual nations. The statement triggered a wave of criticism from human rights groups, prompting his spokeswoman to add later that Ban believed in the need to work to abolish the death penalty, although he was aware nations differed on the issue. 
Kofi Annan, Ban's predecessor, opposed the death penalty as a matter of policy, along with many other top UN officials and all members of the European Union.  Following the criticism, Ban urged Iraq on January 3 to stay executions after Louise Arbour, the UN high commissioner for human rights, appealed to Iraq not to put to death two Iraqi officials who served under Saddam. Barzan al-Tikriti, Saddam's half-brother and former intelligence chief, and Awad al-Bander, a former chief judge, were found guilty along with Saddam of crimes against humanity in the killings of 148 Shi'ite men from Dujail in the 1980s.