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Criticism over Iraq hangings
16/01/2007 11:56 - (SA)
Baghdad - Two former henchmen of Saddam Hussein have been buried near the former dictator's grave after being hanged for crimes against humanity.
The controversy stirred up by Saddam's botched execution was fuelled further when the hanging of Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti and Awad Ahmed Bandar went awry, with Barzan's head ripped from his body as he plunged from the gallows.
Barzan and Bandar were buried late on Monday in the ex-dictator's village of Awja, on the outskirts of Tikrit, 180km north of Baghdad, an official said.
Their tombs were dug on the grounds that surround Saddam's own grave, which is set in the floor of a marble hall built during his regime for public condolences.
Vengeance
But while there was none of the mass mourning that marked Saddam's burial, Sunni Arabs and others were shocked by what some allege was further vengeance by the Shi'ite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
The government showed a video of Monday's hanging to select journalists to allay possible charges that the condemned men had been mistreated in any way, with Barzan's body seen falling in an orange blur after the trap door swung open.
Officials did not plan to release the images publicly however, hoping to avert the kind of outcry that accompanied bootleg images of Saddam's hanging that circulated on the internet.
As in the case of Saddam, the world was shocked Monday more by how the sentences were carried out than by the fact that two feared members of the former regime had been put to death.
US 'disappointed'
US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, who works within an administration that backs capital punishment and Iraq's sovereign right to choose its own form of punishment, said she too was disappointed by the manner in which the executions were carried out.
Speaking in the Egyptian city of Luxor, Rice told a press conference: "We were disappointed there was not greater dignity given to the accused under these circumstances".
UN human rights commissioner Louise Arbour reiterated her stance against capital punishment and added: "In this particular case, not only is the penalty irremediable, it may also make it more difficult to have a complete judicial accounting of other, equally horrendous, crimes committed in Iraq."
Human rights group Amnesty International slammed the hangings, saying the men "should have had a fair trial".
"Reports that Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti had his head severed during the hanging only emphasize the brutality of this already cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment," Amnesty spokesperson Malcolm Smart added.
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