Posted on 08/24/2007 7:30:12 AM PDT by RDTF
BAGHDAD, Aug. 23 — One of Saddam Hussein’s most senior henchmen ordered two brothers to be thrown to their deaths from a helicopter after concrete blocks were tied to their feet, the men’s mother told a court in Baghdad on Thursday.
The testimony came on the third day of the trial of Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as Chemical Ali, on charges of crimes against humanity.
The woman, Leila Khadem Nasser, 56, said that she learned the fate of her sons from her nephew, who had also been held by the government. The three men and Ms. Nasser’s brother were arrested in 1991 during the government’s crackdown after the Persian Gulf war.
She said that both her brother and nephew, who were released later that year, told her that her sons had been executed and that her nephew said concrete blocks had been tied to their feet before they were thrown out of a helicopter over the Shatt al-Arab waterway near Basra.
“That was nine days after their detention,” she said. “My nephew said Ali Hassan al-Majid was the one who ordered their execution.”
Mr. Majid and 14 co-defendants are accused of crimes against humanity in the brutal suppression of an uprising by Shiites in southern Iraq in 1991 after Mr. Hussein’s forces withdrew from Kuwait, having been routed by an American-led coalition. He is known as Chemical Ali for his role in gassing Kurdish villages in the north, for which he has already received multiple death sentences. He has appealed in that case.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Obviously these thugs understood little about physics.
Physics lesson complete.
They could have flown away.
I’m sure the Baathists had enough savage igenuity, but what are the odds they learned this practice from their French friends (Chiraq... cough...) who got professional on this practice in Algeria?
ok, physics question - would the blocks have yanked off their feet before they hit the water?
Well, assume that the blocks weighed 22Kgs each (and ignore air resistance, which would be similar for both the blocks and the person). They would accelerate towards the waterway at 9.8 meters per second^2. The feet of the person, which weigh much less, would fall at ... 9.8 meters per second^2. What do you think?
There is a reason you memorize the acceleration of gravity in physics class... because it is a constant for all objects (at the Earth's surface)...
lol - it’ all french to me, but the answer is no?
Very good. Now, for your homework, please explain why state lotteries are simply a tax on people who failed highschool math.
now that one is way over my head
You don’t remember the story of that Italian guy who was caught throwing things off that building that was leaning to one side?
How can it be French? I never used the word "surrender" once!
*grin*
*chuckle*
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