* U.N. urges Iraq to reconsider resuming death penalty

* U.N. concerned about fairness of trials

By Tim Cocks

BAGHDAD, May 6 (Reuters) - Three days after a dozen convicts were hanged in Baghdad, the United Nations urged Iraq on Wednesday to reconsider its resumption of the death penalty, saying 115 prisoners on death row may not have had fair trials.

A U.N. official, who declined to be named, told Reuters Sunday's executions were thought to be the first for about 18 months, although he acknowledged their may have been a few carried out during that time that were not made public.

"It is a matter of regret that, after a year and half of non-application of the death penalty, executions have resumed," the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and the U.N. mission in Baghdad said in a joint statement.

"The Iraqi justice system does not guarantee sufficient fair trial procedures in accordance with ... the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights," it said.

Iraq reintroduced the death penalty in 2004 after it was suspended following the U.S.-led invasion a year earlier.

The U.N. official said the pause in executions was "something of a mystery" but may have been because Iraq had no permanent justice minister for most of that period.

In a country where insurgents have assassinated numerous judges and the government has been rebuilt completely since the invasion in 2003, rights groups say trials ending in death sentences are often unfair.

"It is of particular concern that the prohibition of the use of evidence -- including confessions -- gathered under duress or torture, and the right not to be compelled to ... confess guilt, are often violated in Iraq," it added.

Iraq's Justice Ministry was not available for immediate comment on the U.N. statement.

HANGING OF SADDAM

Iraq's most high-profile execution since 2003 was that of former dictator Saddam Hussein, a Sunni Muslim hanged in 2006 after being convicted of crimes against humanity over the killing of 148 Shi'ite men and boys in the 1980s.

Some rights groups say his trial was tainted by politics.

Members of Iraq's Sunni Arab minority were outraged by a video that showed the ousted leader being subjected to sectarian taunts by official observers from the Shi'ite-led governing coalition just before he was executed.

His half-brother Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti was executed two weeks later in a grisly botched hanging that tore off his head.

Rights group Amnesty International has called on Iraq to make public the names and charges against those to be executed. It says the death penalty is an ineffective deterrent in a country plagued by suicide bombers and others willing to sacrifice their lives.

Amnesty estimates that more than 130 people have been executed in the past three years, and many more sentenced to death, while cautioning accurate figures are hard to obtain.

The fate of tens of thousands of Iraqis, many of them Sunni Arabs, in U.S. and Iraqi detention is a sensitive issue as the country tries to recover from years of sectarian bloodshed. (Editing by Peter Millership)

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