Head of Saddam's Half-Brother Torn Off in Hanging, From MSNBC Options

[jonerik]

Whoops.

Saddam aides hanged, but one beheaded
Half-brother's head is severed; Sunnis claim he was 'mutilated'

MSNBC News Services
Updated: 10:56 a.m. ET Jan 15, 2007

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Saddam Hussein’s half brother and the former chief of Iraq’s Revolutionary Court were both hanged before dawn Monday, but the half-brother's head was severed by the noose — leading to outrage from Sunnis who claim the body was mutilated.

Barzan Ibrahim, Saddam’s half brother and former intelligence chief, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, once head of Iraq’s Revolutionary Court, had been found guilty along with Saddam in the killing of 148 Shiite Muslims after a 1982 assassination attempt on the former leader in the town of Dujail north of Baghdad.

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh confirmed the executions, saying those attending the hangings included a prosecutor, a judge and a physician.

He also said Ibrahim’s head was severed from his body during his hanging.

“In a rare incident, the head of the accused Barzan Ibrahim al-Hassan was separated from his body during the execution,” al-Dabbagh told reporters.

Hangmen gauge the length of rope needed to snap the neck of the condemned but not to create enough force to sever the head.

Saleem al-Jibouri, a senior Sunni Arab lawmaker, said Ibrahim's body might have been weakened by the cancer he was suffering.

Trembling with fear

Iraqi government officials later showed journalists film of the executions. The two men trembled with fear and stood side-by-side, wearing red prison jumpsuits. As they reached the gallows, black hoods were put on their heads and five masked men surrounded them.

There was no repeat of the sectarian taunting that marred Saddam’s execution when it was revealed by illicit mobile phone video footage.

After the trap doors opened, al-Bandar could be seen dangling from the rope. Ibrahim’s body was lying on the floor, chest down, his still-hooded severed head resting several yards away.

Al-Dabbagh said the gallows were built to international standards and in accordance with human rights organizations.

“We will not release the video, but we want to show the truth,” he added. “The Iraqi government acted in a neutral way.”

Al-Dabbagh stressed that all laws and rules were respected during the proceedings, choosing his words carefully after Saddam’s execution became an unruly scene that brought worldwide criticism of the Iraqi government. Video of Saddam's execution, recorded on a cell phone camera, showed the former dictator being taunted on the gallows.

“Those present signed documents pledging not to violate the rules or otherwise face legal penalties. All the people present abided by the government’s rule and there were no violations,” he said, adding the hangings occurred at 3 a.m. “No one shouted slogans or said anything that would taint the execution. None of those charged were insulted.”

Sunnis upset

The announcement drew outrage from some in the Sunni community while majority Shiites who were heavily persecuted under Saddam’s regime expressed joy.

Khalaf al-Olayan, a leader of the main Sunni bloc in parliament, demanded to see any video taken during the execution.

"It is impossible for a person to be decapitated during a hanging,” he told Al-Jazeera television. “This shows that they (the government) have mutilated the body and this is a violation of the law.”

“We want to see the video that was taken during the execution of the two men in order for them (government) to prove what they are saying,” he added.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, along with the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour, had called on the Iraqi government to refrain from executing Ibrahim and al-Bandar.

The men's families were expected to recover the bodies and officials in Saddam's hometown said the men would be buried next to him in the village of Awja.

Same execution chamber

The executions reportedly occurred in the same Saddam-era military intelligence headquarters building in north Baghdad where the former leader was hanged two days before the end of 2006, according to an Iraqi general, who would not allow use of his name because he was not authorized to release the information. The building is located in the Shiite neighborhood of Kazimiyah.

The two men were to have been hanged along with Saddam on Dec. 30, but Iraqi authorities decided to execute Saddam alone on what National Security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie called a “special day.”

Last week, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani urged the government to delay the executions.

“In my opinion we should wait,” Talabani said Wednesday at a news conference with U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad. “We should examine the situation,” he said without elaborating.

Debating delay

On Tuesday, al-Maliki said that Khalilzad asked him to delay Saddam’s execution for 10 days to two weeks, but added that Iraqi officials rejected the demand.

A lawyer for the two men told The Associated Press recently that they were taken from their cells and told they were going to be hanged on the same day Saddam was executed.

Issam Ghazawi, a member of Saddam’s defense team for the past two years, said he met individually with Ibrahim and al-Bandar recently, and that Ibrahim told him they were escorted from their cells and told they were also going to be executed.

“The Americans took me and al-Bandar from our cells on the same day of Saddam’s execution to an office inside the prison at 1 a.m. They asked us to collect our belongings because they intend to execute us at dawn,” Ibrahim reportedly said.

He said the two men were also told to write their wills.

'Psychological pain'

Al-Bandar and Ibrahim were taken back to their prison cells nearly nine hours later, according to Ghazawi.

“Their execution should be commuted under such circumstances because of the psychological pain they endured as they waited to hang,” he said.

Ghazawi quoted Al-Bandar as saying he “wished to have been executed with President Saddam.” Ibrahim, the lawyer said, “was in the worst condition. He kept crying over the death of his brother and said it was a great loss for the family and the Arab world.”

After Saddam’s execution but before Ibrahim and al-Bandar’s, Human Rights Watch released a report calling the speedy trial and subsequent hanging of Saddam proof of the new Iraqi government’s disregard for human rights.

“The tribunal repeatedly showed its disregard for the fundamental due process rights of all of the defendants,” said Richard Dicker, director of Human Rights Watch’s International Justice Program.

© 2007 MSNBC Interactive The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

[terrydactyl]

pic?

[Harvey Mushman]

Its such a pain in the ass when the heads come off.....

[rooftopsuicideclub]

ha ha.
that is all.

[terrydactyl]

my favorite line?

Al-Dabbagh said the gallows were built to international standards and in accordance with human rights organizations.

[Quill]

The new guys just don't have the system down, yet. They'll get better at it.

[jonerik]

my favorite line?

Al-Dabbagh said the gallows were built to international standards and in accordance with human rights organizations.

Yeah, that one tickled me, too. "Oh, well, as long as it was built under the Amnesty International execution guidelines I guess we're off the hook...."

[Big Tony]

I guess this must've been on page 2 when I posted my ripped off head thread. Sorry. It's still pretty awesome. These bastards can't seem to catch a break.

[jonerik]

I guess this must've been on page 2 when I posted my ripped off head thread. Sorry. It's still pretty awesome. These bastards can't seem to catch a break.

Hopefully the video will show up at some point on YouTube with an overdubbed BWAA-BWWWWAAAAAHHHHH... muted trumpet sound effect when his head falls off and goes rolling across the floor.

[terrydactyl]

Hopefully the video will show up at some point on YouTube with an overdubbed BWAA-BWWWWAAAAAHHHHH... muted trumpet sound effect when his head falls off and goes rolling across the floor.

you mean how like a crown would appear on a mother's head when she ate a particular brand of butter?

[jonerik]

you mean how like a crown would appear on a mother's head when she ate a particular brand of butter?

No, that was more of a triumphant TA-TA-TA-DA-DAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!

[terrydactyl]

No, that was more of a triumphant TA-TA-TA-DA-DAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!

oh im sorry
carry on people

[Harvey Mushman]

I know the trumpet sound you mean......I hear it everytime I wake up...

Bwa, Bwa, Bwaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh..............

[jonerik]

Witness: Executed man's 'head just snapped off'

POSTED: 1:29 a.m. EST, January 16, 2007

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A journalist who saw videotape of the Monday hangings of Saddam Hussein's half-brother and the dictator's former chief judge has described how one of the men was decapitated.

New York Times reporter John F. Burns told CNN's Wolf Blitzer Monday evening that Barzan Hassan's head "just snapped off," because he was apparently given too much rope and fell too far -- about eight feet -- for a man of his medium build and weight.

The hangman's calculations -- a grim science governing the weight of the condemned and how much rope is necessary to kill quickly -- were apparently wrong, Burns said.(Read how hanging is supposed to work)

He said: "Two deeply frightened men in orange jumpsuits, Guantanamo-style, standing on the trapdoor, black hoods over their heads as they intoned the prayer of death.

"As ... they dropped the eight feet allowed by the coiled rope his head just snapped off, just like that, in an instant."

Burns was among a small group of reporters, which did not include CNN, who were invited to watch a videotape of the two side-by-side hangings.

The hangings happened at about 3 a.m. Monday (7 p.m. Sunday ET), said Basam Ridha, spokesman for Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's office.

After the men dropped, Burns said, the videotape shows Hassan "lying face down -- [a] headless pool of blood accumulating around his neck."

Hassan's head was still in the black hood that covered his face before he fell through the trapdoor, according to Burns.

"It seems what happened was that the Iraqi officials who had worked so hard to get this one right just got it wrong," he said.

Burns said the decapitation appeared to be accidental and the execution of the second man, Awad Bandar, appeared to be properly conducted.

"It only goes to show that, you know, when things go wrong, they go very badly wrong in Iraq," said Burns, who has covered the region for many years.

The Iraqi government previously released a silent video of Saddam Hussein's December 30 execution, that ends before the actual hanging.

However, unauthorized mobile phone video showed Hussein's hanging and included audio of Shiite guards taunting the Sunni ex-dictator on the gallows.

That video sparked widespread outrage and suggestions the execution was a sectarian lynching.

There was no audio on the videotape of Monday's executions, Burns said.

Iraqi officials were motivated to show the videotape to reporters because they are "absolutely determined," Burns said, that the video not get on the Internet and "be replayed a million times, especially across the Middle East."

The video will not be released to the public, Ridha said.

Compared to the approximately 25 people who witnessed Hussein's hanging, only about 10-12 people saw Monday's executions, said Burns.

Everyone in the room was required to sign an agreement promising not to engage in taunting the condemned men or recording the execution, said Ridha, who was a witness.

"It was not like a very pretty scene," said Ridha, who called the decapitation "an act of God."

According to their wishes, Hassan and Bandar were buried around 8:30 p.m. Monday near Hussein's grave in Owja, Iraq, a local government spokesman told CNN.

The men were executed for their roles in the killings of 148 men and boys after a 1982 assassination attempt on Hussein in Dujail, Iraq.

Meanwhile, Iraqi Sunnis reacted with anger to the decapitation, and some Shiites expressed shock at the way the hanging was conducted, according to wire reports.

'Very apologetic'

Describing Monday's execution, Ridha said the two men, dressed in their orange prisoner uniforms, "looked very surprised" that they were actually going to be hanged.

They "were very apologetic," asking that they not be put to death, he said. "They asked God for forgiveness," he said.

Hoods were placed over their heads, unlike Hussein, who asked not to be given a hood when he was hanged on the same gallows, Ridha said.

The two were sentenced to death in November.

Their death sentences were upheld by an Iraqi appeals court in December but delayed amid the controversy surrounding Hussein's execution.

CNN's Arwa Damon and Mohammed Tawfeeq contributed to this report.

Copyright 2007 CNN. All rights reserved.

[drumdad]

Pop Goes The Weasel

[J_GuestNoMore]

Proof positive that they were spineless.

[Harvey Mushman]

The only person who maybe, maybe has a right to be upset over this is the guy who cleans up the execution room after everyone has left.

[JodyThePig]

Witness: Executed man's 'head just snapped off'

When the manufacturers of the head were contacted for comment, Halliburton VP of Human Resources Trudy Ferguson responded, "These Iraqi heads were produced according to the specifications we received, so any malfunction must have been user-related."

[Sandybomb]

Hopefully the video will show up at some point on YouTube with an overdubbed BWAA-BWWWWAAAAAHHHHH... muted trumpet sound effect when his head falls off and goes rolling across the floor.

Ha ha ha. I know exactly what you mean. How awful!