WORLD / Middle East
Lawyer: Two Saddam aides hanged
(Reuters)
Updated: 2007-01-15 13:44
An undated handout file photo shows Former Iraqi president Saddam
Hussein's half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti on the five of clubs card in a
US pack of cards of 55 most-wanted Iraqis distributed to troops. [Reuters]
Baghdad - Amid conflicting reports and what appeared to be an attempted
media blackout, a lawyer for one of Saddam Hussein's co-defendants said
the former Iraqi president's two condemned aides were hanged at dawn on
Monday.
Badia Aref told CNN that the son of his client, former judge Awad
al-Bander, had been told by US officials that Bander and Saddam's
half-brother and former intelligence chief Barzan al-Tikriti had been
hanged, 16 days after Saddam himself.
He later told Al Arabiya television: "One hour ago, or even less than one
hour ago, the Americans told (his family) to get ready to collect his
body ... His son is with me now, but he cannot talk because he's praying."
US-funded Al Hurra television, which first reported Saddam's execution,
quoted an Iraqi government source also saying the pair had been executed.
However, few officials involved in the court were available for comment
except for senior prosecutor Munkith al-Faroon -- and he, although quoted
in one media report as confirming the executions, then repeatedly denied
any knowledge of the deaths.
Iraqi state television carried his denial in a screenflash.
The chief prosecutor in the case, Jaafar al-Moussawi, told Reuters he was
unaware of an execution and seeking information. By law, one of the
prosecution team must be present at hangings.
Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein (front) and his co-defendant Barzan
Ibrahim al-Tikriti (back) gesture during their trial in Baghdad in this
February 13, 2006 file photo. [Reuters]
Controversy over Saddam's hanging has made Iraqi officials reluctant to
speak on the record about some elements of it and some have previously
made contradictory remarks in public.
The emergence of illicit mobile phone video showing Saddam being taunted
by Shi'ite observers at his execution on December 30, four days after his
appeal failed, angered many in his Sunni Arab minority, embarrassed the
Shi'ite-led government and the U.S. administration and raised sectarian
tensions.
A US military spokesman and a US embassy spokesman said they were unaware
of the deaths. The Iraqi government spokesman has scheduled a news
conference for 10:30 am (0730 GMT). It was announced on Sunday and the
subject was not given.
Barzan was a feared figure in Iraq at the head of the intelligence
service in the 1980s. Bander presided the Revolutionary Court which
sentenced 148 Shi'ite men and youths to death after an assassination
attempt on Saddam in the town of Dujail in 1982. With Saddam, they were
convicted on November 5 of crimes against humanity by the US-sponsored
High Tribunal.
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