BAGHDAD, 8 FEBRUARY, 2012: The Iraqi Ministry of Justice announced Wednesday that it has executed 14 convicted prisoners over terrorist and criminal charges.

  
"Fourteen convicted prisoners were executed in the early morning, including a leader of the self-styled Islamic State of Iraq, in the city of Mosul," Haidar al-Saadi, a ministry spokesman, told reporters.
    
The prisoners received the death penalty for charges of terrorism and other crimes committed in the past few years, Xinhua news agency reported Saadi as saying.
     
Death penalty in Iraq was suspended for over a year after the US-led invasion of the country. Paul Bremer, then US administrator for Iraq, suspended it on June 10, 2003.
   
However, the Iraqi government reinstated the capital punishment on Aug 8, 2004, saying that it would curb the widespread violence in the country.
    
Since then, scores of people have been executed, including the toppled Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.
    

- Bernama