Human rights abuses in Iraq are as bad now as they were under Saddam Hussein, as lawlessness and sectarian violence sweep the country, the former UN human rights chief in Iraq said Thursday.

John Pace, who left his post as director of the human rights office at the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq last month, said the level of extra-judicial executions and torture is soaring, and both government-backed militia and insurgents are threatening morgue workers not to properly investigate deaths.

“Under Saddam, if you agreed to forgo your basic right to freedom of expression and thought, you were physically more or less OK,” Dr Pace said in an interview with The Associated Press. “But now, no. Here, you have a primitive, chaotic situation where anybody can do anything they want to anyone.”

Dr Pace, who was born in Malta but now resides in Australia, said that while the scale of atrocity under Saddam was “daunting”, now nobody is safe from abuse.