BAGHDAD — Five Saddam Hussein-era officials, including two of the late dictator’s half brothers, will be executed within a month after being handed over to Iraqi authorities by the US military, an official said Friday.
The group, transferred to Iraqi custody Thursday morning, was among 206 high-value detainees still being held by American forces ahead of a US military pullout due by the end of the year.
“We received the final 206 Iraqi prisoners being held by US forces, including five senior officials from the former regime,” justice ministry spokesman Haidar al Saadi said. “They [the five officials] will be executed within one month.”
Saadi added that “they include Watban Ibrahim Hassan and Sabawi Ibrahim al Tikriti,” two half brothers of former dictator Saddam Hussein.
Also among the group handed over and slated to be executed were former defense minister Sultan Hashem Ahmad and ex-generals Hussein Rashid al Tikriti and Aziz Saleh Numan.
The five were sentenced to death in different trials.
“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,” he 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 either by President Jalal Talabani or by one of his two vice presidents.
The 206 prisoners transferred were being held by US forces at a detention facility on Baghdad’s outskirts, formerly known as Camp Cropper. Though the site was handed over to Iraq on July 15, 2010, American soldiers were charged with holding the group of high-value detainees.
Saddam, who was deposed in a 2003 US-led invasion, himself spent three years in Camp Cropper until his execution in December 2006.