Iraq has joined the ranks of the world's leading executioners, Amnesty International said today.
Iraqi authorities executed at least 65 people - including two women - in 2006, a total surpassed only by China, Iran and Pakistan, the organisation said.
"This represents a profoundly retrograde step . . . one that should not be overlooked simply because far larger numbers of lives have been lost due to ongoing violence," Amnesty reported.
The death penalty was suspended after the US-led coalition toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003, but it was reinstated when authority was handed over to the Iraqi provisional government in August 2004.
Since then, more than 270 people have been sentenced to death, and at least 100 people have been executed, the report says.
"People have been executed after trials that don't meet international standards," Amnesty researcher Carsten Jurgensen said. "Obviously there have been prominent examples like Saddam Hussein, but then there have been all the other non-prominent cases, which hardly get mentioned anywhere."
In a country where detainees are often kept days or weeks without being brought before a judge and where defence lawyers often had little or no access to their clients, Amnesty said the use of torture in capital cases was a concern.
Some Iraqis were executed after making confessions on an Iraqi television show called Terrorism In The Grip Of Justice, which was taken off the air in 2005, Amnesty said..