On April 9, 2003 Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime was overthrown by a US-led military coalition.

On April 9, 2003 Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime was overthrown by a US-led military coalition. Under UN Security Council Resolutions 1483, 1500, and 1511, an Interim Administration, comprised of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and the Iraqi Governing Council, was to administer the country until an internationally recognized, representative government was established and assumed responsibility. On June 28, 2004 power was transferred to an interim Iraqi government headed by Iyad Allawi.
The new interim government re-introduced the death penalty. The use of capital punishment had been suspended by the US Central Command as Saddam Hussein was ousted from power. The ban was maintained by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and a new interim constitution made no mention of the death penalty. However, on August 8, 2004 Iraq re-instated the death penalty for a limited range of crimes including murder, kidnapping, rape, drug offences and threats to national security. On October 4, 2005, Iraqi lawmakers approved the death penalty for anyone financing or “provoking” terrorism. The tough new anti-terrorism law set capital punishment for those who “commit ... terror acts” as well as those who “provoke, plan, finance and all those who enable terrorists to commit these crimes”.
According to Iraqi law a death sentence must be approved by the government, the President and the two Vice-Presidents.
The death penalty has been in force in the Iraqi legal system since 1921, following the foundation of the Iraqi State in 1920. Its field of application had been increasingly extended since the taking of power by the Baath party in 1968 and since 1979, the year marking the beginning of Saddam Hussein's presidency.
Saddam’s survival for a quarter of a century depended on a ruthless response to any hint of dissent. Up to his fall in 2003, several special courts in Iraq were run by the country's diverse security services. Their rulings could not be appealed and defendants were not allowed access to lawyers. A large number of death penalty convictions were put into effect through laws and decrees enacted by the Council of the Revolution Command (CCR). The CCR represented the supreme legislative authority of the regime and its decisions had the force of law. The proportionality of the sentence according to the seriousness of the offence did not exist in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. The death penalty was applicable to a vast range of crimes, including: attempting to murder the president; political activities outside the Baath party, such as becoming a member of the Baath party without previously having informed it of a previous membership of other parties, maintaining relations with a previous party or leaving the Baath party to join another party; offences such as membership of a party or an organization created in order to overthrow the regime or to plot against the State; membership of the Al Dawa Islamic Party, without distinction of age (under 18 or old people); seeking refuge abroad, joining opponents to the regime and revealing State secrets (including reports on the human rights situation); drug trafficking; car theft; money forging; corruption; speculation on currency; embezzlement; forging and falsification of documents, in particular for the persons belonging to the army or for civil servants; trade of prohibited goods; trafficking of antiques; prostitution; avoidance of the draft or desertion of the army on three occasions.
From 1998 to 2001, 4,000 people had been executed according to a report presented to the UN Commission on Human Rights by the Special Rapporteur on Iraq, Andreas Mavrommatis, on April 1, 2002. Estimates for executions under Saddam’s dictatorship however seem to have fallen far short of the real number of victims - by tens of thousands. The CPA said that at least 300,000 people had been buried in mass graves. Officials from human rights organisations talked of 500,000 and some Iraqi political parties estimated that more than 1 million people were executed and buried in secret places. Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay reportedly signed around 10,000 execution orders. Saddam is believed to have killed scores of army commanders after his spies in their ranks reported signs of disloyalty. The execution of political opponents and military ‘conspirators’ was kept up until the regime’s fall on April 9, 2003.
Even criticizing President Hussein was an offence in Iraq and the regime imposed cruel penalties to terrorize its citizens. Some of them like the branding of foreheads and amputations of ears, hands and tongues were prescribed by law or arbitrarily carried out by the militia force known as Saddam's Commandos.
Conditions in Iraqi prisons under Saddam were unbearable. Torture and mistreatment were very common. Methods of torture used in Iraqi jails included using electric drills to maim hands, pulling out fingernails, sexual attacks and "official rape". The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), following a mission to Iraq in July 2002, published a list of 199 prisons around the country, but there were many unofficial detention centres, situated in warehouses, government buildings or ministries such as the agriculture ministry. All military command centres had a detention area, generally reserved for political prisoners, estimated to be around 4,000. The total prison population added up to 60,000 inmates, thousands of whom never get to trial and for whom the only hope of release rested on amnesty. Instead of amnesties, the Iraqi regime dealt with overpopulation through the execution of hundreds of prisoners at a time.
In Iraq, Islamic law is the chief source of legislation according to the 2005 Constitution.
After the fall of Saddam Hussein on 9 April 2003, the death penalty was suspended by the Provisional Authority of the Coalition. It was reintroduced after the transfer of power to Iraqi authorities on 28 June 2004. No official statistics exist on the number of prisoners sentenced to death or executed in Iraq. It is estimated that from August 2004, when the death penalty was reinstated, until 2009, one thousand people have been sentenced to death and even more have been executed. Ratifying the death sentence is one of the prerogatives of Iraq’s head of State, as stipulated in article 73 of the Constitution. All death sentences must be confirmed by the Cassation Court, after which they are referred to the Presidential Council, composed of the President and the two Vice-Presidents, for ratification and implementation. The ex-president, Jalal Talabani, did not use to sign execution orders and he delegated his ratification powers to the two Vice-Presidents. On 13 June 2011, President Talabani appointed his first deputy minister Khudayr al-Khuzaie to sign death penalty verdicts and, on 19 August, he appointed his second deputy minister Tareq al-Hashemi to do the same. However, the new orders now are signed by the new President, Fuad Massoum.
All prisoners whose death sentences have been ratified by the Presidential Council are transferred to the 5th section of Al-Adalah prison complex in Baghdad before they are executed. There is a shower room in the prison where the convict can take ablutions before the execution if she or he so wishes. The convict is also weighed and measured so that the appropriate length of rope can be determined for the hanging. The sentence and decree ordering execution are read before the sentence is implemented. Witnesses gather inside a viewing room with a one-way glass window to observe the execution. After the execution, the body is handed over to relatives, upon their request; if not, the person will be buried by the authorities without a funeral ceremony.
The hangings are carried out regularly, from a wooden gallows in a small, cramped cell in Section 5 (al Shuba al Khamisa) of the Al-Adalah Prison. The prison is in Saddam Hussein’s old intelligence headquarters at Kadhimiya, a Shia district in Baghdad. This section of the prison is run by the Internal Affairs Ministry, while the others are under the Ministry of Justice. There is no public record of these killings in what is now called Baghdad’s “high-security detention facility” but there have been hundreds since America overthrown Saddam’s regime. On 30 December 2006 Saddam Hussein was hanged in the same “secure” unit at Kadhimiya where al-Maliki’s people, in an echo of Saddamite Baathist terror, now hang their victims. In many cases, it seems, the Iraqis neither keep nor release any record of the true names of their captives or of the hanged prisoners. The condemned prisoners in Kadhimiya are said to include rapists and murderers as well as insurgents, for whom awaits the same summary justice they mete out to their own captives.
On 30 May 2010, the Iraqi Council of Ministers extended the application of the death penalty for economic crimes to the stealing of electricity.
Currently, the death penalty can be imposed for around 48 crimes, including a number of non-fatal crimes such as – under certain circumstances – damage to public property; however, most executions have been carried out under Article 4 of the October 2005 Anti-Terrorism Law.
The Anti-terrorism Law provides for the death penalty for “whoever commits... terrorist acts,” as well as for “anyone who instigates, prepares, finances and fosters the conditions for terrorists to commit this type of crime.” The Law contains a broad definition of terrorism that is susceptible to wide interpretation: “Every criminal act committed by an individual or an organized group that targeted an individual or a group of individuals or groups or official or unofficial institutions and caused damage to public or private properties, with the aim to disturb the peace, stability, and national unity or to bring about horror and fear among people and to create chaos to achieve terrorist goals.” Furthermore, the terrorism law offered amnesty and anonymity to al-mukhbir al-sirri, secret informers who report alleged terrorist activities. Those reports contributed to the detention of thousands of Iraqis, who were sentenced to death shortly after being arrested. Iraq’s Government has also received criticism for televising many confessions of those who committed acts of terrorism. It’s difficult to find out under what conditions those confessions were given. The fact is that detainees are sometimes tortured and forced to confess crimes or terrorist acts during pre-trial interrogations, confessions they later denounce in court. However, such confessions are highly publicized and regularly broadcast on the State-funded TV channel, a practice which strongly undermines the rule of law and the right to a fair trial.
On 9 March 2006, the first condemnations were carried out under the new anti-terrorism law.
Executions began in August 2005. Since then, as of 31 December 2014, at least 691 executions were carried out, most of them related to acts of terrorism.
In 2014, Iraq executed at least 67 people, according to the High Commission for Human Rights in Iraq.According to Amnesty International, at least 38 death sentences were imposed and at least one commutation was granted. In 2013, Iraq executed at least 177 people (including 3 women), the country’s highest figure since the 2003 US-led invasion. In 2012, according to an AFP tally based on public justice ministry announcements, Iraq executed at least 129 people, a significant and worrying increase compared to the previous year when at least 68 people were executed, already four times as many as the 17 executed in 2010.
The Justice Ministry rarely provides information about executions in advance, the identities of those executed, the charges against them, or the evidence presented against them at trial. The Ministry says merely that they were “terrorist members of Al-Qaeda” convicted under article 4 of the Anti-Terrorism Law, No. 13 of 2005, who had participated in assassinations, explosions, and other terrorist attacks. A Justice Ministry employee told Human Rights Watch (HRW)  that execution orders for people on death row are handed down directly from the Prime Minister’s Office to prison facilities. On 12 July 2014, HRW said Iraqi security forces and Shia militia members had executed at least 255 Sunni prisoners in six cities and villages; at least eight of those who were killed were boys under age 18, the group said.
On 24 January 2012, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay expressed shock at Iraq’s execution of 34 people in a single day and called on the Country to institute an immediate moratorium on the use of the death penalty. “Even if the most scrupulous fair trial standards were observed, this would be a terrifying number of executions to take place in a single day,” Navi Pillay stated in a news release. “Given the lack of transparency in court proceedings, major concerns about due process and fairness of trials, and the very wide range of offences for which the death penalty can be imposed in Iraq, it is a truly shocking figure,” she added. The High Commissioner also urged the Government “to halt all executions and, as a matter of urgency, review the cases of those individuals currently on death row.” “Most disturbingly,” said Ms. Pillay, “we do not have a single report of anyone on death row being pardoned, despite the fact there are well documented cases of confessions being extracted under duress.”
On 27 January 2012, EU High Representative Catherine Ashton expressed concern about the increasing use of the death penalty in Iraq. “The increase in executions in the last months clearly goes against the worldwide trend towards the abolition of the death penalty,” she said in a statement. The EU called on Iraq to cease carrying out executions and to introduce a moratorium on the use of the death penalty, with a view to its abolition. The 27-member European bloc urged Iraq to adhere to minimum international standards for the use of the death penalty. “The death penalty should only be imposed for the most serious crimes, and in the case of clear and compelling evidence. It should never be used in cases where convictions were based on confessions that may have been coerced, and an effective right to appeal must be ensured,” added the statement.
On 4 April 2012, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was “concerned by the continued and increased implementation of the death penalty” in Iraq. “I urge the Iraqi authorities to establish a moratorium on the use of the death penalty,” he said.
On 20 January 2014, the United Nations human rights chief, Navi Pillay, condemned Iraq’s mass executions. “This continued conveyor-belt of executions by the Government of Iraq is simply deplorable,” her spokesman, Rupert Colville, said. “Iraq’s justice system still has huge deficiencies which mean that resorting to even a small number of executions is risking a grave and irredeemable miscarriage of justice,” he said. “When people are executed by the dozen, it means that such miscarriages of justice are virtually certain to be occurring.”
On 19 October 2014, the United Nations said Iraq should stop its widespread use of the death penalty, which is unjust, flawed and only fuels the violence it purports to deter. "Far from providing justice to the victims of acts of violence and terrorism and their families, miscarriages of justice merely compound the effects of the crime by potentially claiming the life of another innocent person and by undermining any real justice that the victims and families might have received," said the report, published jointly by the U.N. Mission in Iraq and the U.N. Human Rights Office. Some convicts' relatives said they had been offered a chance to avoid the death penalty by hiring a particular lawyer for 100,000 USD, while many women detainees said they had been detained in place of a male relative, the report said. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein and U.N. Special Representative for Iraq Nickolay Mladenov said Iraq should impose a moratorium on the death penalty. The report said the Iraqi government's view that the death penalty deterred violence "appears not to be valid given the deteriorating security situation over the past years" and said the executions appeared to be merely a reaction to the violence. “As many of those engaged in committing acts of terrorism in Iraq are motivated by an extremist ideology and are prepared to die to achieve their objectives, it may well be that they do not view the death penalty as a deterrent.” The report also rejected the government's claim that its use of the death penalty enjoyed popular support in Iraq. "Once informed of the facts, including that it has no deterrent effect whatsoever on levels of violence and the risks of serious and irreversible miscarriages of justice, it is unlikely that the death penalty would continue to enjoy the public support that it now allegedly receives," the report said. It also called on the autonomous Kurdistan Region, which has a de facto moratorium on the death penalty since 2008, to abolish it permanently.
On 22 October 2014, the head of the Law Committee in Kurdistan Parliament, Valla Farid, told BasNews that there should be more clarity on capital punishment law and a decision should be taken on whether the death penalty has to be implemented or stopped permanently. According to information obtained by BasNews, about 300 people in all Kurdistan prisons are waiting to be executed, even though the death penalty has not been implemented in the autonomous Region for almost 15 years. Member of the Law Committee Goran Azad stated, “The final decision has to be taken in one direction or another, because capital punishment has caused many problems for those sentenced to death… They are counted as dead people while they are still alive.”
On 29 December 2014, the Federal Legislative Authority announced the release of 3,442 detainees for terrorist charges, who were proved not guilty, all over Iraq. Spokesman Abdul Sattar Beiraqdar said, in a statement, that the special investigation court on terrorism released, alone, 2,779 detainees who were charged with terrorism. He added that the Authority was trying to expedite solving the remaining cases.
On 3 November 2014, Iraq was reviewed under the Universal Periodic Review of the UN Human Rights Council. In its National Report, the Government said, “Abolition of the death penalty would currently constitute a flaw in the criminal justice system, since Iraq is confronted with organized and unorganized heinous and abhorrent terrorist crimes... Under these circumstances, Iraq must retain the death penalty.” However, Iraq wished to review the application of death penalty by establishing a department in the Ministry of Human Rights to look into the issue in the future, in the hope that the penalty could be restricted to the gravest of crimes.
On 18 December 2014, Iraq voted against the Resolution on a Moratorium on the Use of the Death Penalty at the UN General Assembly. Also on December 20, 2012, Iraq had voted against the Resolution.