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Iraq PM to further restrict amnesty law

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Saturday that he will seek to amend a 2008 amnesty law  because its application has allowed too many accused of corruption and terrorism to be released. Speaking before both Shia and Sunni leaders, al-Maliki said the law had been inappropriately changed from the version originally drafted by the government. He blamed a recent increase in violence  on some of those released under its current version, which he said allowed terrorists who did not directly commit a killing to receive a pardon. Al-Maliki has also said that a recent US release  of more than 3,200 detainees has contributed to the rise in violence. The Iraqi legislature passed the General Amnesty Law in February 2008 as part of al-Maliki's effort to draw disaffected Sunnis into the national reconciliation and reconstruction process. In May 2008 Iraq's Council of Ministers amended the law to exclude prisoners who had committed certain types of serious crimes, including terrorist activities against the state. In June 2008, a spokesman for Iraq's Supreme Judicial Council said the law had resulted in charges being dropped  against over 75,000 people with some 20,000 others being ordered freed from detention.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on May 24, 2009 (boomark / email).