Hanging of 36 men in Iraq ‘fuelled by vengeance’, says UN

Thirty-six men hanged in Iraq for a sectarian mass killing of soldiers were denied a proper legal defence at their trials and the executions appeared to have been “fuelled by vengeance”, the United Nations said yesterday.

The hangings were carried out on Sunday at a prison in southern Iraq, state TV said. Those executed were suspected Sunni Muslim militants convicted of the killings of as many as 1,700 soldiers, mostly Shia Muslims, after they were taken captive by Islamic State insurgents two years ago. – (Reuters)