Jordan hangs 15 death row prisoners at dawn in further break from moratorium on executions

Jordan hanged 15 death row prisoners at dawn on Saturday, its information minister said, in a further break with the moratorium on executions it had observed between 2006 and 2014.

Ten of those put to death had been convicted of terrorism offences and five of “heinous” crimes, Mahmud al-Momani told the official Petra news agency.

Those executed included one man who was convicted of an attack last year on an intelligence compound that killed five security personnel, al Momani said. Another five were involved in an assault by security forces on a militant hideout in Irbid city in the same year that led to the death of seven militants and one police officer, while the rest related to separate incidents that go back as far as 2003.

A judicial source said the authorities also executed a gunman who last year shot dead outside a court a Christian writer who was standing trial for contempt of religion after sharing on social media a caricature insulting Islam. Also among the 10 was a gunman convicted of firing at a group of Western tourists near the Roman amphitheatre in downtown Amman in 2006, killing one Briton and injuring five other people, the judicial source added.

The five other executions were for rape and sexual assault.