Posted on 12/29/2006 9:48:57 PM PST by Dallas59
The men who were hanged alongside Saddam (AFP)
30 December 2006
BAGHDAD - The two men hanged alongside Saddam on Saturday were Barzan Ibrahim Hassan Al Tikriti, one of Saddams three half-brothers and a former director of the feared Mukhabarat intelligence service, and Awad Ahmed Al Bandar Al Sadun, former chief judge of the revolutionary court and deputy head of Saddams office.
Like Saddam, they were sentenced to death for their roles in the massacre of 148 Iraqi Shias from the village of Dujail, north of Baghdad, after a failed attempt on the former dictators life in 1982.
BARZAN IBRAHIM HASSAN Al TIKRITI: Detained on April 16, 2003, he was number 52 on the wanted list issued by US commanders after their March 2003 invasion, and five of clubs in a pack of playing cards issued to troops.
Hot-tempered and secretive, Barzan had a series of rows with other members of Saddams Tikriti clan, notably the presidents elder son, Uday, but family ties meant he was always welcomed back.
A 1988 dispute erupted over Barzans opposition to the marriage of one of Saddams daughters to a rival member of the Tikriti clan, Hussein Kamel Hassan, friends said.
And in 2003, Barzan opposed Saddams younger son, Qusay, succeeding his father as president.
But despite the disagreements, Barzan remained one of the presidents most trusted aides. He managed Saddams personal fortune until 1995 and is also believed to have coordinated covert purchases in Europe for the regimes prized weapons programmes.
Being Iraqi ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva from 1988 to 1998 gave him the perfect cover, and he is also believed to have set up arrangements to circumvent the UN sanctions clamped on Iraq after Saddams 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
He also coordinated Baghdads intelligence network in Europe and managed Saddams assets in European banks, according to opponents of the ousted regime.
He returned home in late 1998 after his wife died of cancer. A source close to Barzan said that during this period, he urged Saddam to abolish the ruling Revolution Command Council (RCC) and proposed forming a government of technocrats he himself would head.
Born in 1951, Barzan was still in his teens when he took part in the coup that brought his half-brother into the circles of power. A father of eight, he studied law and political science at Baghdads Al Mustansiriyah University.
US officials had characterized him as a member of Saddams Dirty Dozen, responsible for much of the torture and murder for which the regime became notorious.
The charges against him dated from when he headed the secret police, from early 1982 to late 1983, at the height of the devastating Iran-Iraq war.
He was accused of particapating in the 1982 Dujail massacre.
Barzan had been diagnosed with cancer and a number of calls were made for his release for treatment on humanitarian grounds.
AWAD AHMED Al BANDAR Al SADUN was a former chief judge of the revolutionary court and deputy head of Saddams office.
The 60-year-old Bandar was indicted on July 1, 2004, becoming the first judge to be tried for using his court to carry out political executions since Nazi judges were brought before the Nuremberg trials.
Bandars lawyer was abducted and executed the day after the trial started on October 19, 2005.
While some accused Bandar of simply having no experience as a judge, as with the Nuremberg cases the main argument revolved around judges accountability for enforcing unjust laws that were nevertheless legal.
As such, it was argued that Bandar was only obeying orders but the court decided that Bandars request for execution orders was in fact an order of murder and not a judgment issued by virtue of the law and in conformity with it.
He was found guilty of committing a deliberate crime against humanity and sentenced to death.
Controversial Italian lawyer Giovanni Di Stefano, a one-time member of Saddams legal team, said that the prosecution had failed to prove that Bandars court was a summary court as had been proven at Nuremberg and that as a result there was no basis for a conviction.
Instead, he said, the prosecution only proved that the judge was carrying out the orders of Saddams government.
Besides being in charge of so-called show trials, Bandar was also accused of sentencing 35 minors to death.
However, he insisted his trials were fair and that he never sentenced minors to die, saying on April 16 that: The accused had all the the rights and were defended by their lawyers ... I am a judge and my deep conscience does not allow to sentence someone under 20 to death.
If Takriti was number 52 Most Wanted and got hung, it's time to invest in the Iraqi rope industry.
Those two haven't been hanged yet.
Ummm....nobody else was hanged. Just Saddam.
I guess we'll find out later.
?
Good flick -- leaves you wondering about judges though...
Barzan Ibrahim Hassan al-Tikriti
Awad Hamed al-Bandar al Sadun
It was just a rumor started by the evil Neo/Theo-cons that Hi-jacked the presidency in order to further their scheme for world domination.
Yes the first report were that the other 2 were hanged but it was later disputed; someone from the Iraq govt was on CNN
and they were saying the other 2 get hanged after Eid ends.
"Barzan had been diagnosed with cancer and a number of calls were made for his release for treatment on humanitarian grounds."
We want to hang the Ba*t*r**s! We don't want to cure them!
They must be perfectly healthy before execution. No Exceptions!
Sincerely yours,
Democrat anonymous.
The clowns at the D.U. are going nut's. Good news for the world= bad news for them. Sadam must of been a Democrat, I truly do-not understand what makes them tick. But don't care -I don't care why terrorists hate us either-they both have to be defeated.
I was just over there
(and I MUST share the pain)
lostnotforgotten (207 posts) Sat Dec-30-06 09:10 AM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2669902
1. Help Me Understand
Saddam Hussein executed for gassing some hundreds of Kurds.
Bush kills 3,000 US troops (maimed some 20,000 or so) and probably some 600,000 Iraqis.
Is there a disconnect here?
The implications are obvious to me
My God, these people are every bit as psychotic as I remember. I used to hang out over there some, but got to the point that I just couldn't do it any more.
Just incomprehensible.
Happy New Year
Bugler
I'm not megalomanic, I really am great. To be sure, the duller the mind, the more likely it is to believe that.
No ego problems here. :-)
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