The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has sharply criticized Donald Trump's decision to pardon four former Blackwater contractors jailed over the killing of 14 Iraqi civilians.

Iran PressAmerica: Martha Hurtado, the spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, in a statement in Geneva on Wednesday night, said: "Pardoning them contributes to impunity and has the effect of emboldening others to commit such crimes in the future."

Human Rights Watch says the pardons "show contempt for the rule of law."

This week Trump pardoned 14 people, including four members of the notorious American company Blackwater, who were sentenced to long prison terms for killing 14 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad in 2007.

The four were part of an armored convoy that fired sporadically and indiscriminately at a group of innocent people in the Iraqi capital, known as the Nisour Square Massacre in Baghdad.

The massacre took place in 2007 when the four were working as guards for Blackwater, a private military contractor, on an assignment in Baghdad. They claimed they were fired on, but prosecutors said the Blackwater guards opened fire first. Slatten, whom prosecutors said started the shooting, was sentenced to life in prison.

On Wednesday night, the Iraqi Foreign Ministry issued a statement condemning the perpetrators of the killings of Iraqi citizens and called this act against human rights. 219