UN rights chief asks Iraq to stop executions

Geneva, Jan 4: United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour appealed to Iraq not to execute two ex-officials from the administration of former president Saddam Hussein.

An earlier appeal from Arbour not to carry out a death sentence on Saddam himself, executed last Saturday, was brushed aside by the authorities in Baghdad.

Arbour said she had sent her latest appeal, referring to Saddam's half-brother and former intelligence chief Barzan al-Tikriti and a former chief judge, Awad al-Bander, directly to Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.

''International law, as it currently stands, only allows the imposition of the death penalty as an exceptional measure within rigorous legal constraints,'' said the former Canadian High Court justice.

She said concerns that she expressed about the fairness and impartiality of Saddam's trial applied equally to the other two men, whose appeals against sentence, like that of Saddam, have been rejected.

''I have therefore today directly appealed to the President of the Republic of Iraq to refrain from carrying out these sentences,'' Arbour declared.

Under Iraq's international obligations, she said, the Baghdad government was bound to give the two men the opportunity to seek commutation of the sentence or pardon.

REUTERS

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