On
this date (15 January 2007), Two Iraqi War criminals were executed by hanging,
Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti and Awad Hamed al-Bandar. I will give information
about them from Wikipedia. Their executions reminded me of the hangings of the
Nazi War Criminals.
 |
|
Awad Hamed al-Bandar, left, former
head of Iraq's Revolutionary Court; and Barzan Ibrahim, Saddam's half
brother and former intelligence chief.
|
Personal details
|
|
Born
|
February
17, 1951
Tikrit, Iraq |
Died
|
January 15,
2007 (aged 55)
Baghdad, Iraq |
Political
party
|
Arab
Socialist Ba'ath Party
|
Barzan Ibrahim al-Hasan al-Tikriti (February 17, 1951 – January 15,
2007) (also known as Barazan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, Barasan Ibrahem Alhassen, and
Barzan Hassan) (Arabic: برزان إبراهيم الحسن التكريتي; Barzān Ibrāhīm al-Ḥasan
at-Tikrītī) was one of three half-brothers of Saddam Hussein, and a leader
of the Mukhabarat, the Iraqi intelligence service. Despite falling out of
favour with Saddam at one time, he was believed to have been a close
presidential adviser at the time of his capture. On January 15, 2007, he was
hanged for crimes against humanity. The rope decapitated him because wrong
measurements were used in conjunction with how far he was dropped from the
platform.
Family
- Mohamed Barzan Ibrahim Hasan al-Tikriti (son)
- Saja Barzan Ibrahim Hasan al-Tikriti (daughter)
- Ali Barzan Ibrahim Hasan al-Tikriti (son)
- Noor Barzan Ibrahim Hasan al-Tikriti (daughter)
- Khawla Barzan Ibrahim Hasan al-Tikriti (daughter)
- Thoraya Barzan Ibrahim Hasan al-Tikriti (daughter)
High
position in Iraqi government
Al-Tikriti
was a leading figure in the Mukhabarat, the intelligence service that later turned
to another agency performing the duty of Secret Police, from the 1970s, later
taking over as director. During his time in the secret police, al-Tikriti
played a key role in the Iraqi regime's execution of opponents at home and
assassinations abroad. He was also known for his ruthlessness and brutality in
purging the Iraqi military of anyone seen as disloyal.
Al-Tikriti
became Iraq's representative to the United Nations in Geneva—including the UN
Human Rights Committee—in 1989. He was in Geneva for almost a decade, during
which he is believed to have managed clandestine accounts for the Iraqi
president's overseas fortune. This task was then taken over by a network of
foreign brokers, since Hussein had decided that no one in Iraq could be trusted
with this task.
U.S.
officials characterized al-Tikriti as a member of what they called
"Saddam's Dirty Dozen", responsible for torture and mass murder in
Iraq. U.S. forces captured him on April 17, 2003. Al-Tikriti was the five of
clubs in the most-wanted Iraqi playing cards.
Post-invasion
Al-Tikriti
was among the leadership figures who U.S. forces targeted during the Iraq War.
In April 2003, warplanes dropped six satellite-guided bombs on a building in
the Iraqi city of Ramadi, west of Baghdad, where he was thought to be. In late
summer 2003, al-Tikriti was confirmed captured alive by U.S. Army Special
Forces with a large entourage of bodyguards in Baghdad. He was turned over to
Iraq’s Interim Government on June 30, 2004, and was arraigned on July 1, 2004.
 |
|
Saddam Hussein's half-brother Barzan Ibrahim
al-Tikriti dresses in underwear to protest at the authority of the court
charging him over a 1982 massacre in Iraq.
|
Trial
and courtroom charges
Al-Tikriti's
trial started on October 19, 2005. He was a defendant in the Iraq Special
Tribunal's Al-Dujail trial, and Abd al-Semd al-Husseini was his defence
counsel. In a first stage, Al-Tikriti stood trial before a five-judge panel for
the Dujail Massacre. He was charged for crimes against humanity, simultaneously
with seven other former high officials (Taha Yassin Ramadan, Saddam Hussein, Awad
Hamed al-Bandar, Abdullah Kadhem Roweed Al-Musheikhi, Ali Daeem Ali, Mohammed
Azawi Ali and Mizher Abdullah Roweed Al-Musheikhi). They were said to have
ordered and overseen the killings, in July 1982, of more than 140 Shiite men
from Dujail, a village 35 miles north of Baghdad. The men were allegedly killed
in retribution after a July 8, 1982 attack on the presidential motorcade as it
passed through the village. It was alleged that, apart from the killings,
hundreds of women and children from the town were jailed for years in desert internment
camps, and that the date palm groves, which sustained the local economy and
were the families' livelihood, were destroyed.
During
the first court session on October 19, 2005, al-Tikriti pleaded not guilty.
During his trial, he was known for his angry outbursts in court and was ejected
on several occasions.
In
the weeks following the first audience, serious security concerns for the
defense team of Hussein and the other accused became apparent. On October 21,
2005, 36 hours after the first hearing, a group of unidentified armed men
dragged one of the attorneys from his office in east Baghdad and shot him dead.
A few days later, a second lawyer was killed in a drive-by shooting, and a third,
injured in that attack, subsequently fled Iraq for sanctuary in Qatar.
As
a result, calls for the trial to be held abroad were heard. The defense
lawyers, supported by the Iraqi Bar Association, imposed a boycott on the trial
until their security concerns were met with specific measures. A few days
before the trial was to resume, the defense team announced that it had accepted
offers of protection from Iraqi and U.S. officials and would appear in court on
November 28, 2005. The agreement is said to have included the same level of
protection that is offered to the Iraqi judges and prosecutors, with measures
such as armored cars and teams of bodyguards.
After
a short court session on November 28, 2005, during which some testimony
regarding the killings in Dujail was presented, Judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin
ordered a one-week adjournment until December 5, to grant the defence teams
time to find new counsel.
On
March 12, 2006, the prosecutor announced that if Hussein and his seven
co-defendants were sentenced to death in the Dujail case, the sentence would be
carried out as soon as possible. Thus, the other cases for which they were
indicted would not be heard in court. On June 19, 2006, the prosecutor asked
the court, in his closing arguments, that the death penalty be imposed upon
al-Tikriti, Hussein and Ramadan.
On
November 5, 2006, al-Tikriti was sentenced to death by hanging.
Appeals
A
death sentence or life imprisonment generates an automatic appeal. On December
3, 2006, the defence team lodged an appeal against the verdicts for al-Tikriti,
Hussein and al-Bander, who had been sentenced to death. On December 26, 2006,
the appeals chamber confirmed the verdict and the death sentence against
al-Tikriti.
In
November 2006, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani appealed for al-Tikriti to be
moved to medical facilities to receive treatment for his spinal cancer.
Al-Tikriti originally made an appeal from his cell to U.S. President George W.
Bush and to Talabani for treatment, referring to the latter as an "old friend".
Execution
On
January 15, 2007, the death sentence was carried out. Al-Tikriti, along with
co-defendants Hussein and the former Chief Justice of the Iraqi Revolutionary
Court al-Bandar, was sentenced to death by hanging. He was originally scheduled
to hang on December 30 with Hussein (as he and al-Bandar wished) but due to the
Eid, lack of time, and lack of logistics (there was no helicopter to deliver
them), as well as international pressure, the hangings were postponed to
January 15. Al-Tikriti's sentence was carried out at 03:00 local time (00:00
UTC) on January 15, 2007. His death was confirmed at 3:05/00:05 UTC. Barzan was
decapitated by the long drop. Al-Tikriti's and al-Bandar's counsel was not
allowed to attend, as was the case with Hussein's hanging.
Awad Hamad al-Bandar (Arabic: عواد حمد بندر السعدون; aka: Awad Hamad Bandar Alsa'doon) (January 2, 1945 -
January 15, 2007) was an Iraqi chief judge under Saddam Hussein's presidency.
He was the head of the Revolutionary Court which issued death sentences against
143 Dujail residents, in the aftermath of the failed assassination attempt on
the president on July 8, 1982 (a year before the U.S. assumed diplomatic ties
with Hussein to help thwart their common enemy: Iran). At the Al-Dujail trial
the Iraqi Special Tribunal tried al-Bandar for crimes against humanity for
issuing the death sentences. On November 5, 2006, al-Bandar was sentenced to
death by hanging along with co-defendants Hussein and Barzan Ibrahim
al-Tikriti, who was beheaded as a result of the hanging.
He
was a member of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party.
Execution
The
sentence was widely expected to be carried out on December 30, 2006, shortly
before 6:00 AM Iraqi local time. Hussein was hanged at 6:05 AM Iraqi local time
(0305 UTC). Initially, al-Tikriti and al-Bandar were also believed to have been
hanged with him. A few hours later, official statements clarified that the
executions of al-Bandar and his remaining co-defendant had been postponed to
give special significance to the day that Hussein was executed. The United States
claimed that it did not have helicopters available to fly the remaining two to
the place of execution; the Iraqi government later said that they did not have
time.
On
January 3, 2007, an Iraqi government official told the Associated Press that
preparations were under way to hang Saddam's half-brother al-Tikriti, a former
intelligence chief, and al-Bandar, the former chief justice of the
Revolutionary Court on Thursday January 4, 2007. Both were hanged before dawn
on January 15, 2007.
They were pronounced dead at 3:05 AM (0005 UTC). Al-Bandar's legal counsel was
not allowed to attend. Hussein and his cousin al-Tikriti were also not allowed
to have their lawyer present when they were executed.
Al-Bandar's
defence counsel comprised
- Bader Awad Hamed Alsa’doon (Lead)
- Saadoun Sughaiyer al-Janabi (also: Sa’doon al-Janabi) - assassinated on 20 October 2005.
Please see the link:
Saddam aides hanged, but
not as planned
Half-brother's
head is severed; Sunnis claim he was 'mutilated'
msnbc.com news services
updated 1/15/2007 4:46:32 PM ET
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Saddam Hussein’s half brother and the
former chief of Iraq’s Revolutionary Court were both hanged before dawn Monday,
but the half-brother's head was severed by the noose — leading to outrage from
Sunnis who claim the body was mutilated.
Barzan
Ibrahim, Saddam’s half brother and former intelligence chief, and Awad Hamed
al-Bandar, once head of Iraq’s Revolutionary Court, 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.
Government
spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh confirmed the executions, saying those attending the
hangings included a prosecutor, a judge and a physician.
He
also said Ibrahim’s head was severed from his body during his hanging.
“In
a rare incident, the head of the accused Barzan Ibrahim al-Hassan was separated
from his body during the execution,” al-Dabbagh told reporters.
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 Ibrahim's body might have been
weakened by the cancer he was suffering.
Trembling with fear
Iraqi
government officials later showed journalists silent video of the executions.
The two men trembled with fear and stood side-by-side, wearing red prison
jumpsuits. As they reached the gallows, black hoods were put on their heads and
five masked men surrounded them.
There
was no repeat of the sectarian taunting that marred Saddam’s execution when it
was revealed by illicit mobile phone video footage.
After
the trap doors opened, al-Bandar could be seen dangling from the rope.
Ibrahim’s body was lying on the floor, chest down, his still-hooded severed
head resting several yards away.
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.
Al-Dabbagh
stressed that all laws and rules were respected during the proceedings,
choosing his words carefully after Saddam’s execution became an unruly scene
that brought worldwide criticism of the Iraqi government. Video of Saddam's
execution, recorded on a cell phone camera, showed the former dictator being
taunted on the gallows.
“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.”
“We
will not release the video, but we want to show the truth,” he added. “The
Iraqi government acted in a neutral way.”
Sunnis upset
The
announcement 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 taken during the execution.
"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.
United
Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, along with the U.N. High Commissioner
for Human Rights Louise Arbour, had called on the Iraqi government to refrain
from executing Ibrahim and al-Bandar.
The
bodies were later taken to Saddam’s hometown of Ouja, near Tikrit, 80 miles
north of Baghdad, for burial, and residents opened fire into the air
intensively, according to Iraqi tradition. Thousands from the Sunni-dominated
area gathered as the bodies were being prepared for burial.
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.
Same execution chamber
The
executions occurred in the same Saddam-era military intelligence headquarters
building in north Baghdad where the former leader was hanged two days before
the end of 2006, according to an Iraqi general, who would not allow use of his
name because he was not authorized to release the information. The building is
located in the Shiite neighborhood of Kazimiyah.
The
two men were to have been hanged along with Saddam on Dec. 30, but Iraqi
authorities decided to execute Saddam alone on what National Security adviser
Mowaffak al-Rubaie called a “special day.”
Last
week, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani urged the government to delay the
executions.
“In
my opinion we should wait,” Talabani said Wednesday at a news conference with
U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad. “We should examine the situation,” he
said without elaborating.
Debating delay
On
Tuesday, al-Maliki said that Khalilzad asked him to delay Saddam’s execution
for 10 days to two weeks, but added that Iraqi officials rejected the demand.
A
lawyer for the two men told The Associated Press recently that they were taken
from their cells and told they were going to be hanged on the same day Saddam
was executed.
Issam
Ghazawi, a member of Saddam’s defense team for the past two years, said he met
individually with Ibrahim and al-Bandar recently, and that Ibrahim told him
they were escorted from their cells and told they were also going to be
executed.
“The
Americans took me and al-Bandar from our cells on the same day of Saddam’s
execution to an office inside the prison at 1 a.m. They asked us to collect our
belongings because they intend to execute us at dawn,” Ibrahim reportedly said.
He
said the two men were also told to write their wills.
'Psychological pain'
Al-Bandar
and Ibrahim were taken back to their prison cells nearly nine hours later,
according to Ghazawi.
“Their
execution should be commuted under such circumstances because of the
psychological pain they endured as they waited to hang,” he said.
Ghazawi
quoted Al-Bandar as saying he “wished to have been executed with President
Saddam.” Ibrahim, the lawyer said, “was in the worst condition. He kept crying
over the death of his brother and said it was a great loss for the family and
the Arab world.”
After
Saddam’s execution but before Ibrahim and al-Bandar’s, Human Rights Watch
released a report calling the speedy trial and subsequent hanging of Saddam
proof of the new Iraqi government’s disregard for human rights.
“The
tribunal repeatedly showed its disregard for the fundamental due process rights
of all of the defendants,” said Richard Dicker, director of Human Rights
Watch’s International Justice Program.
The
Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
 |
|
Relatives and supporters pay respect to the
Iraqi flag-draped coffins of Saddam Hussein 's half-brother Barzan Ibrahim
al-Tikriti (L) and former judge Awad Hamed al-Bander during a funeral in Awja,
near Tikrit in northern Iraq , 175km (110 miles) north of Baghdad, Jan. 15,
2007. Saddam's two aides were buried within hours of their hanging on Monday in
a garden outside the hall which has become a shrine to the former president
since he was interred there two weeks ago.
|
 |
|
Supporters
carry the coffin of Saddam Hussein 's half-brother Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti
during a funeral in Awja, near Tikrit in northern Iraq, Jan. 15, 2007.
|
 |
|
Saddam's two aides were buried within hours
of their hanging on Monday in a garden outside the hall which has become a
shrine to the former president since he was interred there two weeks ago.
|
No comments:
Post a Comment