Iraq Hangs Saddam Deputy for 1982 Slayings of Shiites

By The Associated Press

BAGHDAD – The former deputy in Saddam Hussein’s government was hanged before dawn today for the killings of 148 Shiites, an official with the prime minister’s office said.

Taha Yassin Ramadan, who was Saddam’s vice president when the regime was ousted four years ago, was the fourth man to be executed in the killings of 148 Shiites following a 1982 assassination attempt against the former leader in the city of Dujail.

The official, who witnessed the hanging but spoke on condition of anonymity because an official announcement had not been made, said precautions had been taken to prevent a repeat of what happened to Saddam’s half brother Barzan Ibrahim, who was decapitated on the gallows. Ramadan was weighed before the hanging and the length of the rope was chosen accordingly, the official said.

The executions have outraged Iraqi Sunnis and caused concern among international human rights groups, which had appealed for Ramadan’s life.

Ramadan was convicted in November of murder, forced deportation and torture and sentenced to life in prison. A month later, an appeals court said the sentence was too lenient, and returned his case to the High Tribunal, demanding he be sentenced to death. The court turned it into a death sentence.

Ramadan had maintained his innocence, saying his duties were limited to economic affairs, not security issues. Human Rights Watch and the International Center for Transitional Justice have said the evidence against him was insufficient for the death penalty.

Saddam was executed on Dec. 30 for his role in the killings. Two of his co-defendants in the Dujail case – Ibrahim, Saddam’s former intelligence chief, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, former head of Iraq’s Revolutionary Court – were executed in January.

Saddam’s death was recorded by a cell phone video camera and posted on the Internet, and much of the Sunni Arab world was infuriated by the mockery he faced by onlookers in the moments before his hanging. Ibrahim was inadvertently decapitated when he was hanged, also causing a furor.

Saddam’s regime was predominantly Sunni and many members of the sect have protested the executions on the grounds they are politically motivated by the newly empowered Shiite majority in Iraq. International human rights groups have, by and large, protested that the trial which found the men guilty did not provide them with due legal process.

Around Iraq, meanwhile, bombs tore through a Shiite mosque during prayers in Baghdad and struck several targets in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk on Monday, killing at least 26 people.

The latest attacks highlighted the challenges facing U.S. and Iraqi forces in their bid to curb sectarian bloodshed with the month- old security crackdown. Execution-style killings usually blamed on Shiite militias have fallen dramatically but bombings have not kept pace in the downward trend.

Late Monday, U.S. and Iraqi troops engaged in a major operation as part of the crackdown in the volatile Hurriyah neighborhood in northern Baghdad, state television said. Witnesses said there were many people reported holed up in two Shiite mosques, surrounded by U.S. forces.

The state-run Iraqiya network said six civilians had been killed. The U.S. military did not immediately comment on the reports.

Nobody claimed responsibility for Monday’s bombings, but they bore the hallmarks of Sunni insurgents.

The violence in Baghdad began shortly after the afternoon call to prayer in a small green-domed mosque in the Shorja market area, where a truck bomb killed 137 people last month.

Salah Baqir, a 42-year-old vendor who saw the attack, said the bomber slipped past the guards who were distracted by an argument and placed the explosives in a bag behind the preacher’s lectern.

The blast left a crater and rubble on the floor. At least eight worshippers were killed and 32 others were wounded.

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