CONDEMNED TO DEATH Blindfolded and handcuffed jihadists waiting for their sentences to be executed. AFP BAGHDAD — Iraq executed 12 convicted prisoners to death over terror charges, hours after the Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi called for rapid executions for convicted terrorists, the government said on Friday.

The call was made in response to recent kidnapping and killing of eight security members by Islamic State (IS) militants, it said.

Based on directions by the prime minister, executions were carried out on Thursday of 12 convicted terrorists with final verdicts (of death penalty), said a statement by Abadi’s office.

On Wednesday, the Iraqi forces found eight executed bodies of people kidnapped earlier by the extremist IS group near the village of Sarha at the provincial border between Diyala and Salahudin in central Iraq.

The bodies belonged to policemen and members of paramilitary Hashd Shaabi forces, who were earlier kidnapped and held hostages by the extremist militants.

The latest deterioration in security put the Iraqi security forces under strong criticism for failing to stop the repeated attacks by IS militants, as well as kidnapping dozens of people at fake checkpoints on a main road between Baghdad and Kirkuk.

During the past months, hundreds of IS militants fled their former urban strongholds in Mosul, Salahudin Province and Hawija area in the west of Kirkuk, after Iraqi forces took over these regions in major offensives.

The increase in executions in Iraq has sparked calls to stop capital punishment by the UN mission in Iraq, European Union and some international human rights groups which have criticized the lack of transparency in Iraqi courts.

Death penalty in Iraq was suspended on June 10, 2003, but was reinstated on Aug. 8, 2004. Xinhua