The first executions in Iraq since the ousting of Saddam Hussein will take place within days, Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari said Tuesday - in what could be an ominous sign for the jailed former dictator.
"The president (Jalal Talabani) has signed three death sentences and the next few days will see the first executions in Kut," 175 kilometers (110 miles) south of Baghdad, Jaafari told reporters.
Three members of the al Qaeda-linked group Ansar al-Sunna were sentenced to death in May, a verdict later approved by the Supreme Council for Justice, the highest judicial authority in Iraq.
Kurd Bayan Ahmad al-Jaf, a 30-year-old taxi driver, as well as two Sunni Arabs, Uday Dawud al-Dulaimi, a 25-year-old builder, and Taher Jassem Abbas, a 44-year-old butcher, were condemned to death after being convicted of killing and kidnapping policemen and raping Iraqi women.
They were the first death sentences to be announced by Jaafari's government since capital punishment was suspended by US authorities following the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
Officials from the human rights group Amnesty International condemned the announcement Tuesday, saying it was concerned that dozens of death sentences had been handed out in recent weeks.
"We condemned the passing of death sentences in Iraq before 2003, and we also condemn them now," said Said Boumadouha, an Amnesty official in London who was part of the organisation's last delegation to visit Iraq in early 2004.