Saddam Henchmen Hanged, One Beheaded

(Baghdad) Before dawn today (0000 GMT), two of Saddam Hussein's senior aides were executed by hanging. According to government spokesman Ali Al Dabbagh, there were no violations of procedure and no chanting as Barzan Ibrahim Al Tikriti and Awad Hamed Al Bander were hanged.

The head of former intelligence chief and half-brother of Saddam, Barzan Ibrahim Al Tikriti, was ripped from his body during the procedure. Government adviser Bassam Al Husseini stated it was an "act of God" for his crimes against humanity. Barzan, 55, directed the murder of 148 Shia Muslims from Dujail, including having agents put people in a meat grinder.

A Sunni member of parliament, Saleem Al Jibouri, said Barzan's body may have been weakened by cancer and, thereby, causing the head to come off. However, experts will be consulted to determine if the rope was correct in length.

Awad Hamed Al Bander, 60, kept his head. Bander was chief justice of the Iraqi Revolutionary Court that sentenced 148 Shia men and boys to death after a 1982 assassination attempt on Saddam in Dujail.

Prosecutors said Bander sentenced some of the men from Dujail after they had already been killed and that among those sentenced were under-18s who could not legally be executed.

Thoughtful guy, eh? Kill then sentence.

From Canada.com:

Official video of the hanging of two of Saddam's co-defendants shows the corpse of the late dictator's half-brother lying headless below the gallows, his severed head several metres away.

The video shows Barzan Ibrahim, Saddam's half-brother and former intelligence chief, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, head of Iraq's Revolutionary Court, being hanged side by side.

They wore red prison jumpsuits. As they reached the gallows black hoods were put on their heads.

Five masked men surrounded them.

In summary, it's been an eventful day thus far in Baghdad. The world has been rid of two buddies of Saddam Hussein, all convicted on November 5, and Shia citizens are celebrating in Baghdad's Sadr City slum. And, somewhere there's video which has been shown to reporters but the government said it will not release it.

Companion post at The Jawa Report.