The United Nation's human rights office has condemned the execution of a man and his two wives in Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish region over the kidnapping and murder of two girls.
The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said on August 25 that Farhad Jaafar Mahmood, Khuncha Hassan Ismaeil, and Berivan Haider Karim were hanged on August 12 following convictions in April 2014.
The office said the executions were the first under the Kurdish regional government since an "informal moratorium" was set up there in 2008.
A spokesman for the Kurdish Higher Judicial Council, Omid Mohsen, said regional President Masud Barzani approved the decision. "It is an exceptional case," Mohsen added.
The UN human rights office says Iraq overall has executed more than 600 people since it reinstituted the death penalty in 2004.