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WORLD / Middle East

Saddam's two co-defendants executed

(AP)
Updated: 2007-01-15 12:40

Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, half brother of former Iraqi president Saddam
Hussein, reacts after being sentenced to death at his trial in Baghdad's
heavily fortified Green Zone in this November 5, 2006 file photo. He and
former intelligence chief, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar head of Iraq's
Revolutionary Court, were hanged before dawn on Monday, January 15, 2007.
[Reuters]

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Saddam Hussein's half brother and the former head of
Iraq's Revolutionary Court were both hanged before dawn Monday,
Prosecutor Munqith al-Faroon said, two weeks and two days after the
former Iraqi dictator was executed in a chaotic scene that has drawn
worldwide criticism.

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Barzan Ibrahim, Saddam's half brother and former intelligence chief, and
Awad Hamed al-Bandar head of Iraq's Revolutionary Court, had been found
guilty along with Saddam in the killing of 148 Shiite Muslims after a
1982 assassination attempt on the former leader in the town of Dujail
north of Baghdad.

"They (the government) called us before dawn and told us to send someone.
I sent a judge to witness the execution and it happened," al-Faroon said.

Two aides to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki confirmed that the executions
had taken place. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the
government had not yet released the information.

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh was to hold a news conference later
Monday and was expected to announce the hangings.

The executions reportedly occurred in the same Saddam-era military
intelligence headquarters building in north Baghdad where the former
leader was hanged two days before the end of 2006, according to an Iraqi
general, who would not allow use of his name because he was not
authorized to release the information. The building is located in the
Shiite neighborhood of Kazimiyah.

The two men were to have been hanged along with Saddam on Dec. 30, but
Iraqi authorities decided to execute Saddam alone on what National
Security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie called a "special day."

Last week, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani urged the government to delay
the executions.

"In my opinion we should wait," Talabani said Wednesday at a news
conference with US Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad. "We should
examine the situation," he said without elaborating.

Saddam's execution became an unruly scene that brought worldwide
criticism of the Iraqi government. Video of the execution, recorded on a
cell phone camera, showed the former dictator being taunted on the
gallows.

On Tuesday, al-Maliki said that Khalilzad asked him to delay Saddam's
execution for 10 days to two weeks, but added that Iraqi officials
rejected the demand.

A lawyer for the two men told The Associated Press recently that they
were taken from their cells and told they were going to be hanged on the
same day Saddam was executed.

Issam Ghazawi, a member of Saddam's defense team for the past two years,
said he met individually with Ibrahim and al-Bandar recently, and that
Ibrahim told him they were escorted from their cells and told they were
also going to be executed.

"The Americans took me and al-Bandar from our cells on the same day of
Saddam's execution to an office inside the prison at 1 a.m. They asked us
to collect our belongings because they intend to execute us at dawn,"
Ibrahim reportedly said.

He said the two men were also told to write their wills.

Al-Bandar and Ibrahim were taken back to their prison cells nearly nine
hours later, according to Ghazawi.

"Their execution should be commuted under such circumstances because of
the psychological pain they endured as they waited to hang," he said.

Ghazawi quoted as Al-Bandar as saying he "wished to have been executed
with President Saddam." Ibrahim, the lawyer said, "was in the worst
condition. He kept crying over the death of his brother and said it was a
great loss for the family and the Arab world."

After Saddam's execution but before Ibrahim and al-Bandar's, Human Rights
Watch released a report calling the speedy trial and subsequent hanging
of Saddam proof of the new Iraqi government's disregard for human rights.

"The tribunal repeatedly showed its disregard for the fundamental due
process rights of all of the defendants," said Richard Dicker, director
of Human Rights Watch's International Justice Program.

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