The Iraqi government is systematically violating the human rights of its citizens, according to an internal report from the British Foreign Office published in the Guardian.
A Foreign Office spokesman confirmed that the report was drafted by officials and passed to the newspaper.
The report, classified as restricted, paints a picture of state-sponsored brutality in Iraq, with people guilty of minor offences being mutilated or murdered.
It claimed that more than 50 mental patients were executed in place of prisoners who had bribed their way out of the death sentence.
In other allegations, it said eight prisoners were executed last month for defacing a mural of President Saddam Hussein, while a man's tongue was cut off for slandering the Iraqi leader.
Thirty prostitutes were beheaded in a "clean-up" in October and their severed heads were left on the doorsteps of their homes, according to the report.
It added that execution or torture orders are signed by members of President Saddam's family, including his sons and half-brothers, or by one of his closest advisers.
The orders often specify how the signatory wants the victim to be tortured or killed, said the report.
The Foreign Office spokesman said: "They were Foreign Office reports and they were provided to the Guardian. They are reports that we have compiled based on a range of sources."
Referring to the acts detailed in the report, the spokesman added: "They are violations that we condemn."
The leak of the report to the press comes against the backdrop of a debate over the future of the United Nations sanctions, imposed on Iraq in the aftermath of the 1990 Gulf War.
Some European countries, led by Russia, believe the sanctions have failed to topple the Iraqi leader and should therefore be relaxed or dropped altogether.
But the British and American governments are adamant the sanctions should stay in place.
"The material in the documents. . . will help Britain and the US in their efforts to shore up the sanctions," said the Guardian.
"They will argue that the world must go on trying to force such a monstrous regime out."