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Co-defendants' execution today?

Atul Aneja

Same charges as Saddam faced

DUBAI: The former Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein's two co-defendants, who have been sentenced to death, are likely to be hanged on Thursday.

A senior Iraqi official has said all the formalities regarding their execution on Thursday have been completed. Apart from Mr. Hussein, the Iraqi High Tribunal had passed the death sentence on Barzan Ibrahim Al Tikriti, a former military intelligence chief, and Awad Hamed Al Bandar, a former judge.

U.S. stance

The verdict was announced on November 5 and an appeals court upheld it on December 26. Saddam was executed on December 30, triggering an outcry among his Sunni supporters.

The three were convicted for their role in the killing of 148 individuals belonging to the Shia village of Dujail, following a failed assassination attempt on Saddam's life in 1982.

The Americans sought to distance themselves from the manner in which Saddam's execution was carried out. Most of Saddam's executioners were Shias, who taunted him just before he was hanged.

The widely-publicised video of the final moments, recorded over a mobile phone, has enraged Sunnis, who have staged angry protests in Iraq and Jordan.

At a news conference in Baghdad on Wednesday, U.S. military spokesman William Caldwell said: "It was not our decision as to what occurred [in the execution chamber] but we would have done it differently. We had absolutely nothing to do with the facility where the execution took place," Gen. Caldwell said.

He said the American forces had flown Saddam to the prison where the execution took place, and then withdrew from the building. The Americans were not involved in searching for mobile phones of those who witnessed the hanging, he added.

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