14K+ death sentences pending at Iraqi presidency

Shafaq News- Baghdad

Iraqi President Nizar Amedi on Saturday revealed that more than 14,000 death sentences, including cases involving Arab and other foreign nationals, have accumulated at the presidency since he took office, calling the issue “a longstanding national and constitutional matter.”

“Since I assumed the presidency, the issue of executions has been raised in every meeting,” Amedi told a panel at the eighth Baghdad International Dialogue Conference, adding that he informed political blocs that the cases concern the country as a whole rather than any particular sect or ethnicity. A committee formed after he assumed office reviewed the files and presented its findings to Iraq's three top state authorities.

Months earlier, lawmaker Zahraa Al-Hajami proposed amending Iraq’s Code of Criminal Procedure to allow executions to proceed without presidential approval, leaving judicial rulings as the final authorization. The Geneva International Centre for Justice (GICJ) opposed the proposal, arguing that removing the presidential decree required under Articles 285–289 of the 1971 law would eliminate a final institutional safeguard and could accelerate executions.