Amman 4 Mar (ANA) - Jordan has executed 15 prisoners, including 10 convicted of terrorism charges, officials say. The prisoners, all Jordanians, were hanged at dawn on Saturday in a jail south of Amman, Information Minister Muhammad Momani said. The five not charged with terrorism offences had been convicted of rape and sexual assault. The executions are a further break from a moratorium on capital punishment Jordan imposed between 2006 and 2014. The executed included those convicted for the attacks on the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad in 2003, on tourists at the Roman amphitheatre in the capital Amman in 2006, on intelligence officers in the Baqaa refugee camp in 2016, and the killing of writer Nahid Hattar, also last year, Mr Momani told the Petra news agency. Human rights group Amnesty International condemned the executions. "The horrific scale and secrecy around these executions is shocking," Samah Hadid, deputy director at the group's Beirut office, said in a statement. "This is a major step backwards for both Jordan and efforts to end the death penalty - a senseless and ineffective means of administering justice." Jordan is one of several Middle Eastern countries that have retained capital punishment.(ANA)

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