Iraqi Communist Party accuses authorities of executing 100 persons

The Iraqi opposition Communist Party has asserted that the Iraqi authorities executed some 100 Iraqis, the majority of them political detainees from a prison located south of Baghdad, during November 1998.

AFP quoted a statement released by the party in Shaqlawa, northern Iraq, as saying that the executions were carried out in two stages. Some 63 persons were executed in the first stage carried out in November and another 30 persons were killed on November 18 in al-Ridwaneyah prison.

The statement, a copy of which was sent to AFP, said the bodies of the victims were not handed over to their families but buried at night in collective graves in al-Mashtak district in Baghdad.

The statement explained that no information was available about accusations addressed to those persons, adding that most of them were arrested during the uprising of March 1991 against the Iraqi government in the southern and central parts of the country.

In January this year, the Iraqi Communist Party asserted that Baghdad executed some 81 political prisoners in the middle of December 1998, including four army officers who tried to assassinate President Saddam Hussein.