BAGHDAD — A top international human rights group on Monday called on the Iraqi government to halt the execution of two aides to Saddam Hussein as a trial against the dead dictator and his deputies resumed in Baghdad.
The planned executions "highlight the Iraqi government's disturbing disregard for human rights and the rule of law," said the statement from New York-based Human Rights Watch.
"The haste and vengeance infusing Saddam Hussein's hanging should prompt the Iraqi government to halt these executions," said Richard Dicker, director of Human Rights Watch's International Justice Program, in the statement, describing the aides' executions as "cruel and inhuman punishment that will only drag a deeply flawed process into even greater disrepute."
The deposed dictator was hanged in Baghdad on Dec. 30. The executions of his half brother and former intelligence chief, Barzan Ibrahim Hasan, and former Revolutionary Court Judge Awad Hamed Bandar have been postponed several times under pressure from leaders worldwide.
Like Hussein, the two were found guilty for their roles in the executions of 148 Shiite Muslim men and boys from the village of Dujayl after an assassination attempt against the dictator there in 1982.
In a separate trial, a judge on Monday officially dropped the charges against Hussein who, with six codefendants, was accused of crimes against humanity in connection with a brutal military campaign against Kurds in the northern part of Iraq in the late 1980s. The trial of the six others continued.
On Monday, the court heard tapes of Hussein and his cousin, Ali Hassan Majid, nicknamed Chemical Ali for his alleged role in gas attacks on the Kurds, talking about exterminating thousands with chemical arms.
"They will have to evacuate their homes without taking anything with them, until we can finally purge them," a voice identified as Hussein's said on the tape.
Later in Monday's session, Majid referred to "the martyr Saddam Hussein" in an exchange with Judge Mohammed Orabi Khalefa.
"Do not poke in other issues," Khalefa interrupted. "We are banned from judging the dead or talking about their issues in the courthouse after they were put to justice. You cannot mix your case with that of Saddam."
