Amnesty says executions almost double in 2008

LONDON (Reuters) - Executions rose more than 90 percent to 2,390 last year, with China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United States responsible for over 90 percent of those, Amnesty International said on Tuesday.

China carried out 72 percent of all executions in 2008, according to Amnesty's figures which it said were drawn from governments, human rights groups, court records and media reports.

"The whole situation (in China) is shrouded in secrecy and the numbers might well be much, much higher," Irene Khan, Amnesty's secretary general, told Reuters, noting that the rise in executions was due in part to a change in the judicial system in China where there was a backlog of cases.

The human rights group said in its annual report on the death penalty that the number of people sentenced to death more than doubled last year to 8,864 from 3,347 in 2007.

Iran executed at least 346 people, Saudi Arabia 102, and Pakistan 36, Amnesty said. Japan executed 15 people in 2008, the highest since 1975, it said.

Nevertheless, Amnesty said there was increasing evidence that the United States was turning away from the death penalty -- executing 37, the lowest number since 1994 -- Argentina had abolished the death penalty and there was a "clear move toward abolition" in central Asia.

"Central Asia is now virtually death penalty free, following the abolition of the death penalty in Uzbekistan," Amnesty said.

"Belarus is the last country in Europe and the former Soviet Union that is still carrying out executions," it said. Four people were executed there in 2008.

Amnesty said 25 of 59 countries with death penalty laws on their books carried out executions last year.

In Africa, Botswana and Sudan were the only two countries known to have carried out executions, Amnesty said, adding that Liberia re-introduced the death penalty.

(Reporting by Catherine Bosley; Editing by Louise Ireland)