Iraq to execute Saddam aide on Tuesday

BAGHDAD: Iraq will execute Saddam Hussein's aide and former vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan on Tuesday - the day the war-ravaged nation marks the fourth anniversary of the US-led war to topple the former dictator, a lawyer from Saddam's defence team said on Monday.   

"The Americans called Ramadan's lawyer and asked him to be ready as Ramadan was to be hanged tomorrow at 2:30 am (2330 GMT Monday)," lawyer Badie Aref said, adding that he was told about the planned execution by Ramadan's lawyer whom he refused to identify.   

"They also allowed Ramadan to call his family. He was very calm and composed. He asked his family and friends to pray for him and said that he was not afraid of death."   

Ramadan, born in 1938, will be the third aide of Saddam to be hanged for crimes against humanity over his role in the killing of 148 Shiites from the town of Dujail in the 1980s where Saddam had escaped an assassination bid.   

Saddam himself was hanged for the Dujail killings on December 30 and was later followed to the gallows by two of his henchmen, Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti and Awad Ahmed al-Bandar on January 15.   

An Iraqi appeals court on Thursday confirmed the death sentence on Ramadan. He was sentenced on February 12 by the Iraqi High Tribunal, which is trying former regime officials, for his role in the Dujail killings.   

The sentence was automatically reviewed by the appeals panel, which confirmed his execution by hanging. The former vice president was originally given a life sentence over the Dujail killings, but the prosecution filed a petition demanding that he too be executed.   

US-based Human Rights Watch has urged Iraq not to carry out the death penalty on Ramadan because it said there was insufficient evidence linking him to the Dujail murders.   

"Ramadan was convicted in an unfair trial, and increasing his punishment from life imprisonment to death reeks of vengeance," said Richard Dicker of the organisation's International Justice Programme in a statement last month.   

Despite global outrage against the executions, Iraqi leaders including Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki have said they are determined to punish former regime officials.   

Ramadan was captured by Kurdish fighters in Mosul, northern Iraq, in August 2003 and turned over to US forces.   

In 1970, he formed the "Popular Army," the Baath Party's armed wing, and was a member of the Revolutionary Command Council, the country's highest authority under Saddam.   

The Popular Army is alleged to have arrested suspects and delivered them to Iraqi security and intelligence services following the failed assassination attempt against Saddam in Dujail in 1982.   

After that attack, 148 villagers were arrested and never seen again.