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Saddam's half brother, top aide hanged
AP ^ | 1/15/07 | QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA

Posted on 01/15/2007 9:21:52 AM PST by Sax

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Two top aides to Saddam Hussein were hanged before dawn Monday, and the head of one of them — the former Iraqi dictator's half brother Barzan Ibrahim — was severed from his body during the execution, a government official said.

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Two weeks and two days after Saddam was executed in an unruly scene that has drawn worldwide criticism, government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh stressed that all laws and rules were respected during Monday's hanging of Ibrahim, the former intelligence chief, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, head of Iraq's Revolutionary Court.

"Those present signed documents pledging not to violate the rules or otherwise face legal penalties. All the people present abided by the government's rule and there were no violations," he said, adding the hangings occurred at 3 a.m. "No one shouted slogans or said anything that would taint the execution. None of those charged were insulted."

The official government video of the side-by-side hanging that was shown to a small group of reporters, including one from The Associated Press, showed Ibrahim and al-Bandar wearing red prison jumpsuits. As they reached the gallows, black hoods were put on their heads and five masked men surrounded them.

The silent video showed the trap doors opening. Al-Bandar could be seen dangling from the rope, while Ibrahim's body in a blur fell to the floor, chest down, his still-hooded severed head resting several yards away.

The government played the video for the reporters apparently to allay any suspicions that Ibrahim's body was mutilated after death.

"We will not release the video, but we want to show the truth," al-Dabbagh said. "The Iraqi government acted in a neutral way."

The execution was conducted on the same gallows where Saddam was hanged Dec. 30 in a building located in the Shiite neighborhood of Kazimiyah.

Prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi said Ibrahim looked tense when he was brought into the room and said "I did not do anything. It was all the work of Fadel al-Barrak." Ibrahim was referring to a former head of two intelligence departments."

The government came under widespread condemnation because of Saddam's chaotic execution in which video of the hanging, recorded on a cell phone camera, showed him being taunted on the gallows.

Ibrahim and al-Bandar 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.

The announcement of the executions drew outrage from some in the Sunni community while majority Shiites who were heavily persecuted under Saddam's regime expressed joy.

Ibrahim's son-in-law, Azzam Saleh Abdullah, said "we heard the news from the media. We were supposed to be informed a day earlier, but it seems that this government does not know the rules."

He said it reflected the hatred felt by the Shiite-led government. "They still want more Iraqi bloodshed. To hell with this democracy," he said.

Khalaf al-Olayan, a leader of the main Sunni bloc in parliament, demanded to see any video of the hangings.

"It is impossible for a person to be decapitated during a hanging," he told Al-Jazeera television. "This shows that they (the government) have mutilated the body and this is a violation of the law."

"We want to see the video that was taken during the execution of the two men in order for them (government) to prove what they are saying," he added.

Al-Dabbagh said the gallows were built to international standards and in accordance with human rights organizations.

But Param-Preet Singh, counsel for the international justice program at Human Rights Watch, said she was not aware of any internationally recognized standards for hanging.

"Under no circumstances can an execution be in accordance with human rights standards," she said. "There's a move away from executions in general ... which shows there are no international standards."

Egyptian forensics expert Fakhri Mohammed Saleh told Al-Jazeera that decapitations sometimes occur during hangings if the rope used is of the wrong quality or the people carrying out the executions are inexperienced.

"This is a grave mistake because what meant by execution to end the one's life not to torture him," he told the pan-Arab station from Bahrain. "So, if they want to carry out a death by hanging, they should bring a person who is an expert on this operation to check that the rope is appropriate and it does not consist of artificial fibers that do not lead to a cut in the neck."

The pan-Arab Al-Arabiya TV network reported the two bodies had been taken to Saddam's hometown of Ouja, near Tikrit, 80 miles north of Baghdad, for burial, and the residents opened fire into the air intensively.

Police in Ouja said two graves had been opened near Saddam's grave in a building he built in the 1990s as a community center for religious occasions.

Ibrahim and al-Bandar were to have been hanged with Saddam, but Iraqi authorities decided to execute the former dictator alone.

Last week, President Jalal Talabani urged the government to delay their executions. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, along with U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour, had urged Iraq not to execute them.

Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, meanwhile, called for the release of five Iranians detained last week by U.S. forces in what he said was a legitimate diplomatic mission in northern Iraq, but he stressed that foreign intervention to help insurgents would not be tolerated.

The statement by Zebari highlighted the delicate balance facing the government as it tries to secure Baghdad with the help of American forces while maintaining ties with its neighbors, including U.S. rivals Iran and Syria.

"Any interventions — or any harmful interventions to kill Iraqis or to provide support for insurgency or for the insurgents should be stopped by the Iraqi government and by the coalition forces," Zebari said in an interview with CNN's "Late Edition."

But he also stressed Iraq has to keep good relations with its neighbors in the region.

"You have to remember, our destiny, as Iraqis, we have to live in this part of the world. And we have to live with Iran, we have to live with Syria and Turkey and other countries," he said. "So in fact, on the other hand, the Iraqi government is committed to cultivate good neighborly relations with these two countries and to engage them constructively in security cooperation."

The U.S. military said the five Iranians detained in the Kurdish-controlled city of Irbil were connected to an Iranian Revolutionary Guard faction that funds and arms insurgents in Iraq. It was the second U.S. raid targeting Iranians in Iraq in less than a month.

Iran denied the five were involved in financing and arming insurgents and called for their release along with compensation for damages. "Their job was basically consular, official and in the framework of regulations," Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said Sunday. "What the Americans express was incorrect and hyperbole against Iran in order to justify their acts."

The Iraqis and the Americans, meanwhile, prepared for a new joint security operation to secure Baghdad as it faces spiraling sectarian violence.

Bush said Wednesday an additional 21,500 U.S. troops will head to Iraq to try improve the security situation mainly in Baghdad and the western province of Anbar.

At least 78 people were reported killed or found dead Sunday, including 41 bullet-riddled bodies discovered in Baghdad. The U.S. military also said two American soldiers died Sunday from roadside bombs in Baghdad.

On Monday, three policemen were killed and two hurt when a roadside bomb targeted their car in a southeastern section of Iraq's capital.

___


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: hanged
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To: Married with Children

21 posted on 01/15/2007 10:33:17 AM PST by Revolting cat! (We all need someone we can bleed on...)
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To: Sax

Like the old drill instructor used to say, "Hey yard bird, get your head and a$$ wired together!"


22 posted on 01/15/2007 11:05:21 AM PST by nctexan
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To: Sax
"We will not release the video, but we want to show the truth," al-Dabbagh said.

Anyone know if it's on YouTube or similar sites yet? :)

Reminds me of when Grandma used to kill the fryers and roasters. I used to help capture them. Had long heavy wire with a hook on the end. I would hook 'em like a bad act on amateur night.

They were right tasty too. Grandma was way ahead of her time. We had eggs from free range chickens way before it became "cool", the meat was firmer and less mushy too. It took us decades to get used to the store bought variety of both chicken and eggs, to the extent that we ever did. Now we buy the "cage free" eggs, and they actually do approach what we got from Grandma (or in my wife's case the lady down the road from Grandma, her grandma was allergic to chicken feather, although she had raised them at one time).

23 posted on 01/15/2007 11:23:08 AM PST by El Gato ("The Second Amendment is the RESET button of the United States Constitution." -- Doug McKay)
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To: Sax

Botched hanging arouses suspicions

Jan 16, 2007

The botched hanging of Saddam Hussein's half-brother Barzan on Tuesday aroused Arab suspicions of foul play, deepening the divide between the Iraqi government and Arabs in other countries.

The noose pulled off Barzan al-Takriti's head as he fell from the gallows, suggesting that the hangman had misjudged the length of rope needed just to break his neck.

Government spokesman Ali Dabbagh said there was no "violation of procedure" in the hanging of Barzan and fellow convict Awad Hamed al-Bander, Saddam's former chief judge, for crimes against humanity over the killings of 148 Shi'ites.

But from Morocco to Yemen, ordinary Arabs cast doubt on the official explanation. Some recalled the chaotic and abusive treatment of Saddam Hussein when he was hanged on December 30.

Zaid al-Boudani, a shopkeeper in the Yemeni capital Sanaa, said: "I am very sad today, as many other Muslim Arabs are. This execution is part of the revenge campaign going on in Iraq. The way his head was ripped off shows hatred and revenge."

The president of Morocco's Human Rights Centre described the hangings as a barbaric and vengeful act carried out under external pressure, probably from Iran and the United States.

"We had never heard that the head of a hanged person was ripped from his body, only in this case, which mirrors the hatred and violence," said the president, Khaled Charkaoui.

Azzam Saleh Abdullah, Barzan's brother-in-law, told Al Jazeera in a telephone call that the Iraqi authorities had not informed the family in advance that the execution was imminent.

"We heard the news on television and were shocked. The Iraqi government should have informed us. They know the traditions very well," he added.

"As for ripping off his head, this is the Safavids' rancour. They only came to Iraq to commit revenge and shed Iraqi blood. They did not come for democracy or to build a state. May God curse this democracy," he said.


'Iraqi blood'

"Safavid" is a reference to the dynasty which established Shi'ite Islam as the Iranian state religion from the 16th century and which sometimes controlled parts of Iraq.

Hardline Iraqi Sunnis have started using the term to suggest that the Shi'ites are not true Iraqis.

Issam Ghazzawi, a Jordanian lawyer who saw Barzan on Friday, said he was convinced the decapitation was deliberate.

"His head was cut off after he was hanged to mutilate his body in an a barbaric act of revenge that is against any human values and is vigilante justice by a group of thugs," he said.

At the hanging of Saddam, the executioners shouted sectarian taunts at the former president, who was overthrown and captured after the United States invaded Iraq in 2003.

The Moroccan Human Rights Association, the main independent human rights body in the North African country, said the hangings were a "criminal political assassination".

"The trial of Saddam Hussein and his aides by a pro-US Iraqi court lacks the conditions for a fair trial and makes the verdicts unjust and their hangings a criminal political assassination masterminded by American imperialism", it said.

Yemeni bus driver Hassan Mohammad agreed in blaming the US military presence. "Barzan is another victim of the American occupation in Iraq and the way he was executed shows how the Iraqi government is punishing (people) to avenge their rejection of American dominance and occupation," he said.

But some Arabs in the Gulf, where Saddam was not popular, said they were happy to see Barzan hang.

Ali al-Baghli, a leading Kuwaiti analyst and a former oil minister, said: "Justice has finally been done! ... (Barzan) committed a lot of crimes against humanity and at least he had undergone a legal trial."

"This is the rule of law... They deserved what they got. They cannot kill and torture without facing justice," added Mansoor Al-Jamri, editor of the independent Bahraini newspaper Al Wasat.

http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/411366/960621


24 posted on 01/15/2007 11:30:40 AM PST by TexKat (Just because you did not see it or read it, that does not mean it did or did not happen.)
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Saddam aides hanged, film shows brother beheaded

Mon Jan 15, 2007 10:55am ET

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two of Saddam Hussein's aides were hanged before dawn on Monday, the Iraqi government said.

But despite its efforts to avoid the uproar that marred the execution of the former president two weeks ago, news that the noose ripped the head from Saddam's cancer-stricken half-brother as he plunged from the gallows appalled international critics of the process and fueled fury among Saddam's fellow Sunni Arabs.

On the defensive after Shi'ite sectarian taunts were heard in illicit film of Saddam's execution, a spokesman for the Shi'ite-led government insisted there was "no violation of procedure" during the executions of his half-brother Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti and former judge Awad Hamed al-Bander.

But defense lawyers and politicians from the once dominant Sunni Arab minority expressed anger at the fate of Barzan, Saddam's once feared intelligence chief, and there was also skepticism and condemnation of Iraq's Shi'ite-dominated leadership across the mostly Sunni-ruled Arab world.

Government officials showed journalists film of the two men standing side by side in orange jumpsuits on the scaffold, looking fearful before they were hooded and the nooses placed around their necks. There was no disturbance in the execution chamber -- apparently the same one where Saddam died on December 30.

Bander muttered the prayer: "There is no god but God."

Barzan, 55, a vocal presence during the year-long trial for crimes against humanity, appeared to tremble quietly. As the bodies plunged through the traps, Barzan's hooded head flew off and came to rest beside his body in a pool of blood below the empty noose under the gallows. Bander swung dead on his rope.

Officials said they would not release the film publicly.

Government adviser Bassam al-Husseini said the damage to the body was "an act of God". During his trial for crimes against humanity over the killings of 148 Shi'ites from Dujail, a witness said Barzan's agents put people in a meat grinder.

Hangmen gauge the length of rope needed to snap the neck of the condemned but not to create enough force to sever the head.

Saleem al-Jibouri, a senior Sunni Arab lawmaker, said Barzan may have been weakened by the cancer he was suffering.

SECTARIAN INSULT

Barzan's son-in-law hurled a sectarian insult at the government on pan-Arab Al Jazeera television: "As for ripping off his head, this is the grudge of the Safavids," he said -- a historical term referring to Shi'ite ties to non-Arab Iran.

"They have only came to Iraq for revenge," Azzam Salih Abdullah said from Yemen. "May God curse this democracy."

The hangings took place at 3 a.m. (0000 GMT) at the same former secret police base where Saddam was hanged on December 30, an adviser to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said. Officials tried to impose a media blackout for some hours but word leaked out.

The U.S. ambassador to Iraq said the executions were an entirely Iraqi affair with little U.S. involvement. Asked about the hangings, Zalmay Khalilzad told reporters: "It was an Iraqi process. It was an Iraqi decision, an Iraqi execution."

After Saddam was hanged, the United Nations urged Iraq to reconsider death sentences and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, an opponent of capital punishment, said last week he thought there should be a delay in executing the other two condemned men. Talabani left the country on Sunday to visit Syria.

The video showing Saddam being taunted, angered Sunni Arabs, embarrassed the government and the U.S. administration and raised sectarian tensions in a nation on the brink of civil war.

Shi'ites again celebrated in the streets of Baghdad's Sadr City slum, a bastion of the cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr. His name was heard being chanted at Saddam on the gallows. An unnamed guard faces legal proceedings following a government inquiry into the circumstances of Saddam's execution.

After Barzan's hanging, Moussa Jabor in Sadr City said: "This is the least he should get. He should have been handed over to the people. Execution is a blessing for him."

Barzan was a feared figure in Iraq at the head of the intelligence service in the 1980s, at a time when the Shi'ite majority was harshly oppressed, some like those from Dujail due to suspected links to Shi'ite Iran, then at war with Iraq.

Bander presided over the Revolutionary Court which sentenced 148 Shi'ite men and youths to death after an assassination attempt on Saddam in the town in 1982. With Saddam, they were convicted on November 5 and their appeals rejected on December 26.

Both are to be buried in the village of Awja, near the northern city of Tikrit, where Saddam was born and where he was buried two weeks ago, the provincial governor told Reuters.

Muslim tradition dictates they be interred within a day.

They would lie close to Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay, who were killed by U.S. troops in 2003, not in the building that has become Saddam's mausoleum, visited by thousands of mourners.

(Additional reporting by Claudia Parsons, Aseel Kami and Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad and Inal Ersan and Diala Saadeh in Dubai)

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2007-01-15T185617Z_01_MAC638878_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ.xml&pageNumber=2&imageid=&cap=&sz=&WTModLoc=NewsArt-C1-ArticlePage2


25 posted on 01/15/2007 11:53:00 AM PST by TexKat (Just because you did not see it or read it, that does not mean it did or did not happen.)
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To: stm
".....while Ibrahim's body in a blur fell to the floor, chest down, his still-hooded severed head resting several yards away."

Flag on the play. Fifteen-yard penalty. Automatic First down...

26 posted on 01/15/2007 12:10:33 PM PST by FDNYRHEROES (Always bring a liberal to a gunfight)
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To: FDNYRHEROES

Oops...f*&k it, lets go watch the game.


27 posted on 01/15/2007 12:29:05 PM PST by Raymann
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To: Sax

it's nothing to lose your head about...


28 posted on 01/15/2007 12:37:01 PM PST by Dick Vomer (liberals suck......... but it depends on what your definition of the word "suck" is.)
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To: metmom
One question, is public hanging more or less humane that blowing ones self up with a bomb vest?

One offer I might make to the Iraqi's is to strap bomb belts on these perps, send them wherever large caches of munitions are found and use them as a less expensive way to rid the area of those harmful munitions and help them arrive at their quest for getting their 72 virgins at the same time. Another suggestion - with the same bomb vests firmly attached, use the guilty to check for those pesky mines that are left over on the Iran/Iraq border.

Besides that, can you just imagine the price hemp rope is going to be at the rate that the Iraqi judicial system seems headed?

29 posted on 01/15/2007 12:46:42 PM PST by zerosix
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To: Sax
I am guessing that he had one too many falafels.
30 posted on 01/15/2007 3:25:46 PM PST by VanB
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To: Revolting cat!

I get the point.


31 posted on 01/16/2007 9:33:52 AM PST by Married with Children
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