Saddam co-defendants to be executed early Thursday: report

Jan 3, 2007, 11:45 GMT

Baghdad - Aides to executed former president Saddam Hussein, Awad al-Bandar and Barzan al-Tikriti, will be executed early Thursday for crimes against humanity, Iraqi sources told Arab-language television network al-Arabiya Wednesday.

Al-Bandar, former head of Iraq's Revolutionary Court, and al- Tikriti, Saddam Hussein's half-brother and former head of the intelligence service, were not executed alongside the former dictator Saturday.

Saddam and his aides were convicted in the Dujail trial, which began in October 2004 and delivered its verdict on November 5 this year.

They were found guilty of crimes against humanity for the killing of 148 Shia Muslims in the village of Dujail in 1982.

The killings in the northern Iraqi village were in retaliation for an attempt against Saddam's life during a visit to the area earlier that year.

Meanwhile, information regarding a video showing Saddam being jeered by witnesses during his execution continue to surface.

'The filming of the execution by mobile phones was not done secretively. It was a public act,' Munqith al-Faroon, deputy prosecutor-general, who was present at the execution told al-Iraqiya television Wednesday, adding that he was surprised by the 'media frenzy' surrounding the video.

He added that the filming would be 'a crime' only if the video was taken and sold for money.

Al-Faroon had earlier told the same channel that two 'top government officials' had taken mobile phones with built-in cameras inside the execution chamber and that they were responsible for the leaked video.

He refused to disclose names, but said that he 'knows them.'

Al-Faroon also said that those who shouted 'Moqtada' at Saddam 'were prison guards who attended the execution.'

Fourteen people attended the execution, according to the eyewitness, including high-profile government officials such as Iraqi national security advisor Muwafaq al-Rubaie and the premier's advisor Sami al-Askary and a Sunni cleric.

The Iraqi government said Tuesday that it had ordered an investigation into the video, which was leaked shortly following the execution and showed Saddam on the gallows as guards heckled him, chanting 'Moqtada, Moqtada, Moqtada.'

Initial Iraqi reports of the incident said that two of the prison guards had taken the controversial video.

The video, posted on the Internet and aired on Arab television, recorded the voices of guards chanting the name of Moqtada al-Sadr, an anti-American Shiite cleric, as the ex-leader pronounced the Islamic Shahada (profession of faith).

The al-Sadr supporters appeared to be taunting Saddam, who fired back: 'Is this the bravery of the Arabs?'

Sadrists, despite representation in the Iraqi government, have a military wing that has been accused of bomb attacks and inciting hostilities among Iraqis.

Elements belonging to the Shiite Sadr militia have reportedly infiltrated into the ranks of the Iraqi security forces, and were suspected in a number of abductions around Iraq.

Saddam was executed by hanging early Saturday, on the first day of the Sunni Muslim Feast of Adha.

The ex-president was buried around 24-hours later in the village of Ouja, near his hometown of Tikrit, 180 kilometres north of Baghdad.