UN: Accelerated death sentences risk injustice

BAGHDAD -- Iraq's attempt to fast-track death sentences handed out by the country's courts will result in greater injustice, according to a statement Monday from the United Nations.

"Given the weaknesses of the Iraqi justice system," the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, said, "I am gravely concerned that innocent people have been and may continue to be convicted and executed, resulting in gross, irreversible miscarriages of justice."

The U.N. in Iraq has found "a consistent failure to respect due process and fair trial standards, including a reliance on torture to extract confessions," Al Hussein said.

Iraq's justice system repeatedly has been criticized for a lack of transparency and corruption.

Also Monday, Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered an investigation into allegations of government corruption raised in parliament during the questioning of the minister of defense.

Earlier this year, al-Abadi faced growing anti-government protests demanding reform.