Jordan ended an eight-year moratorium on executions Sunday, hanging 11 men convicted of murder, Ammon News reported.

Jordan's last executions were held in mid-2006, and though the Jordanian Cabinet had been reviewing the policy, no official announcement was made in advance. Ammon News said there are currently 113 people on death row, including 12 women.

The Interior Ministry said the executions were carried out at dawn. Spokesman Ziad Zubi said sentences were ratified by the Court of Cassation, Jordan's highest court. All of the condemned men were Jordanian and had been convicted between 2005 and 2006, Middle East Eye reported.

"Some of the prisoners asked to have their final words passed on their families, others asked only to smoke a cigarette," a source told Agence France-Presse.

Lawmakers had pushed for resumption of the death penalty to stem rising crime rates.

Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director for Human Rights Watch, decried the executions, saying they ended Jordan's "standing as a rare progressive voice on the death penalty in the region."

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