| Hang 'em high. |
“They (the five officials) will be executed within one month.,” said justice ministry spokesman Haidar al-Saadi. “They include Watban Ibrahim Hassan and Sabawi Ibrahim al-Tikriti,” two half-brothers of the former dictator.
Also among the group handed over and slated to be executed were former defence minister Sultan Hashem Ahmed and ex-generals Hussein Rashid al-Tikriti and Aziz Saleh Numan.
The five were sentenced to death in different trials from 2007 to 2011.
“Justice Minister Hassan al-Shammari visited with the presidency council earlier this week and they agreed not to delay the ratification of their condemnation to death,” Saadi said. “We believe that the council will sign the documents within days and they will be executed within one month.”
Under Iraqi law, all death sentences must be formally approved by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, or by either of his two vice presidents.
Watban Ibrahim Hassan, a former interior minister, was sentenced to death in March 2009 for his involvement in the 1992 execution of 42 merchants accused of food price speculation. He is the only senior Saddam-era official to have publicly apologised for wrongs committed by the dictatorÂ’s Baath party.
Sabawi Ibrahim al-Tikriti, a former chief of SaddamÂ’s intelligence service, was condemned to death in the same trial.
Former defence minister Ahmed and ex-general Tikriti were sentenced to death in June 2007 in connection with the repression of IraqÂ’s Kurds in the 1987-88 Anfal campaign in which 180,000 people died.
Numan was given his death sentence last month over the violent suppression of an uprising of Shiite Muslims in south Iraq following the 1991 Gulf War.
So far, Saddam and four of his top officials have been executed since the 2003 invasion.