Iraqi government officials showed journalists film of Monday’s execution of two aides to Saddam Hussein in which they appear to tremble with fear and his half-brother Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti is beheaded by the noose.
The pair stand side by side on what appears to be the same gallows where Saddam was hanged two weeks ago.
Unlike Saddam, they wear orange jumpsuits and were given hoods. When the trap opens, Barzan’s head is wrenched from his body and comes to rest in a pool of blood below the gallows, while former judge Iwad al-Bander swings on a rope beside him.
Like Saddam, al-Bander mutters the Muslim declaration of faith ”There is no god but God” before his death. Both men appear frightened on the scaffold. There is no repeat of the sectarian taunting that marred Saddam’s execution when it was revealed by illicit cellphone video footage.
The government officials said they do not intend to release the film to the public.
The two condemned men had been convicted of crimes against humanity for the killing of 148 Shi’ite civilians following an assassination attempt against the then president in 1982.
They were sentenced to death on November 5 along with Saddam, whose execution on December 30 was widely condemned for the way it was handled by the Iraqi authorities.
Iraqi Shi’ites, who were heavily repressed under Saddam’s Sunni Arab-dominated regime, beat drums and sang in the holy city of Najaf after hearing of the hangings. They marched in the streets, some holding Iraqi flags, Islamic banners and pictures of top Shi’ite clerics.
Basem Ridha, an adviser to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, indicated that the remains of Barzan and al-Bander would be turned over to their families, saying: ”We will invite their families to take the bodies.”
A relative of Barzan earlier said that ”before he died, Iwad al-Bander also asked to be buried near Saddam Hussein”, whose final resting place is in his home village of Awja, north of Baghdad.
Barzan’s Jordanian lawyer Issam al-Ghazzawi said the hangings had come as a surprise.
”On Friday, we were in Baghdad where we met Barzan and al-Bander and no one informed us of the execution date despite our request to have a representative of our committee present when the sentence was carried out,” he said.
The White House in its reaction to Monday’s hangings said the Iraqi government was bringing ”justice” to those guilty of crimes against the Iraqi people. ”Iraq is a sovereign government exercising its judicial system to bring justice to those convicted for brutal crimes against humanity,” White House spokesperson Scott Stanzel said.
Britain restated its opposition to the death penalty, but a Foreign Office spokesperson added that the two condemned men ”were found guilty of crimes against humanity and the Iraqi judicial system has taken its course”. — Reuters, AFP