The number of people executed around the world dropped substantially last year, a report revealed yesterday.
However, at least 2,148 prisoners were executed, and another 20,000 are on death row, the Amnesty International death penalty report showed.
China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the US accounted for 94 per cent of executions recorded in 2005, with China executing 1,770 people - more than all other countries combined.
The number of deaths worldwide was a substantial fall on the figures for 2004, which saw 3,797 people killed for crimes carrying the death penalty. There was also a drop for the fourth consecutive year in the number of countries that carried out capital punishment, down from 25 in 2004 to 22 last year.
However, the charity warned that the report contained minimum figures, as countries such as China refused to publish full statistics on the death penalty.
Amnesty said Chinese legal experts and officials estimated the government could execute as many as 8,000 to 10,000 people each year. In Vietnam, which the report found had executed 21 people, death penalty information is a state secret.
Iran, which carried out 94 executions in 2005, is the only country to allow child offenders to be executed.
According to Amnesty, the US, which executed 60 people in 2005, released two prisoners after evidence of their innocence emerged. The US Supreme Court also ruled that the use of the death penalty on children contravened the constitutional ban on "cruel and unusual punishments", saving the lives of 70 child offenders on US death rows.