Vatican paper hits new Iraq executions, says country heads off course

Published: 2007-01-16

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Vatican newspaper criticized continuing executions in Iraq as a "cruel manipulation" of justice and said the country is veering in the wrong direction. The comments on the front page of L'Osservatore Romano Jan. 15 followed the gruesome hanging of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's half-brother, who was decapitated by the hangman's noose when his body dropped through the gallows floor. A video showed the body of the dead man, Barzan Ibrahim, the former head of the Iraqi secret police, lying on the floor, with his severed head several feet away, still hooded. Iraqi authorities said the decapitation was accidental. Executed at the same moment was Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the head of Saddam's revolutionary court. His body swung from a rope in the video. Both men were convicted of responsibility in the torture and killing of 148 Shiites in 1982.

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