Iraqi Lynchings Bring More Denunciations

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Iraqi Lynchings Bring More Denunciations

Via NY Transfer News Collective All the News that Doesn't Fit

The Washington Post - Jan 16, 2007

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/15/AR2007011500401_pf.html

Iraqi Hangings Bring More Denunciations

Head of Hussein's Half Brother Is Severed

By Joshua Partlow and Muhanned Saif Aldin

Washington Post Foreign Service

BAGHDAD, Jan. 15 -- By the time the corpses of Saddam Hussein's half

brother and another top official, hanged before dawn Monday, arrived in

the village of Auja for burial, the word had spread among the mourners:

The head of Hussein's brother had been severed from his body.

Many of the people who had gathered considered the decapitation of

Barzan Ibrahim to be a calculated insult, another act by the

Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to

humiliate followers of the executed former president and all his fellow

Sunni Arabs. A doctor inspected the remains to assess the government's

explanation that the noose inadvertently took off the head after

Ibrahim dropped through the trapdoor of the scaffold.

"We knew that he would be executed and would join a parade of heroes,

but Maliki, why did you behead him?" asked Salam al-Tikriti, 41, a

relative of Ibrahim. "Why did you insult his body? Are you still afraid

of him even after he is dead? We will cut your heads the same way that

you are cutting the heads of the heroes of Iraq."

In many parts of Iraq, the executions set off new waves of anger and

celebration along sectarian lines, though Maliki's government had gone

to great pains to prevent the type of chaotic spectacle that

accompanied Hussein's hanging two weeks ago, when Shiite witnesses in

the execution chamber taunted Hussein.

Shiites celebrated the new executions, while Sunni politicians vented.

Alaa Makki, a Sunni legislator, said that justice was done but the

manner of the execution was disturbing. "Everybody knows that when you

hang people, rarely the head will be decapitated from the body," he

said, criticizing what he called a "revenge on the body."

"It denotes that people are very reactive and very extremist and they

want revenge," he said.

Hussein al-Falluji, another Sunni legislator, called the executions

"illegitimate and illegal."

The hangings drew criticism from abroad as well. The Moroccan Human

Rights Association said they were a "criminal political assassination

masterminded by American imperialism."

A U.N. spokesman expressed regret that Secretary General Ban Ki Moon's

request to spare the two men's lives was not granted. Jos? Manuel

Barroso, president of the European Commission, the European Union's

executive arm, said after the hangings that he would back an Italian

initiative for a worldwide moratorium on capital punishment under U.N.

auspices.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, visiting Egypt, said she believed

the hangings of Hussein and the two others were mishandled and should

have been carried out with "greater dignity."

Ibrahim, who ran Hussein's intelligence service, or Mukhabarat, and

Awad Haman Bander, leader of Hussein's Revolutionary Court, were put to

death at 3 a.m. Monday, government spokesman Ali Dabbagh said. They had

been sentenced to death for their role in the killings of 148 men and

boys from the Shiite village of Dujail following an assassination

attempt against Hussein in 1982.

Iraqi officials denied that the decapitation was intentional, saying

that Ibrahim's neck had been unable to absorb the noose's force.

Dabbagh described it as a "rare incident" in a hanging and said that

the proceeding was marked by professionalism and restraint not shown

during Hussein's execution.

For Monday's hangings, the Iraqi government restricted the witnesses to

a judge, a prosecutor, a doctor, a prison warden and representatives of

the Interior Ministry and the prime minister's office, Dabbagh said.

They made the attendees sign documents pledging they would not

misbehave, Dabbagh added.

"Everyone obeyed the instructions of the government; no violation,

chant, slogans or words that would harm the execution of this verdict

was registered," he said.

Iraqi officials showed silent video clips of the hangings to reporters

at a news conference but did not release the footage to the public.

According to an Associated Press account of the video, the two

defendants appeared side by side at the gallows wearing red prison

jumpsuits. They were surrounded by five masked men, and black hoods

were placed over their heads. After the trapdoors beneath them opened,

Bander dangled from the rope, but the shock of the rope going taut

severed Ibrahim's head from his body, both of which fell to the floor,

the news service reported.

By 6 p.m., the bodies had arrived in Auja, about 100 miles north of

Baghdad, and were greeted by more than 1,000 people. The crowd carried

the corpses, wrapped in Iraqi flags, on their shoulders into a hall as

chants rang out of "Allahu akbar" -- "God is great" -- and guns were

fired into the air.

The bodies were washed and wrapped in white shrouds before being buried

in a garden plot next to the hall that houses Hussein's grave. The

crowd surrounded the bodies, and the sound of crying mixed with chanted

praises to God.

"We are so proud that [bander] died as a martyr defending his beliefs,"

said Abdulla al-Sadoon, 55, a relative of Bander from Basra. "It is a

proud thing to die like this."

Top officials from Salahuddin province attended the burials, and the

funerals for Bander and Ibrahim were expected to last three days.

The hangings occurred on a day when two top outgoing U.S. officials in

Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey Jr. and U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad,

told reporters that they were optimistic about the new plan to secure

Baghdad, saying they sensed a deeper commitment by the Iraqi government

to combat Sunni and Shiite extremists who are fighting in the capital.

The Shiite-led Iraqi security forces have been widely accused of

operating death squads that target Sunnis while allowing Shiite

militias in the capital free rein. But Casey added that he did not

expect to see significant improvement in Baghdad's security until the

summer or fall.

"There is a strong political commitment from the government of Iraq to

the plan, including the will to act, and including the will not to

impose constraints on coalition and Iraqi security forces," Casey said,

adding: "As with any plan, there are no guarantees of success, and it's

not going to happen overnight. But with sustained political support and

concentrated efforts on all sides, I believe that this plan can work."

President Bush has committed to send an additional 21,500 troops to

Iraq in order to maintain a more visible presence in Baghdad's

embattled neighborhoods and provide more support for Iraqi troops. The

first of the reinforcements have arrived, Casey said.

"Yes, there are still difficulties with the Iraqi security forces; that

has been a challenge," he said. "The increased deployment of coalition

forces will enable us to increase the level of support we are providing

to those forces, to strengthen them a little bit as we go forward with

this plan."

Also on Monday, the U.S. military announced that a U.S. soldier from

the 89th Military Police Brigade died Sunday when a roadside bomb

exploded near his vehicle north of Baghdad. The soldier's name was not

released.

[Aldin reported from Auja. Special correspondents Naseer Nouri and Saad

al-Izzi in Baghdad contributed to this report.]

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