BAGHDAD, Jan. 10 (UPI) -- Iraqi President Jalal Talabani is urging authorities to delay the execution of Saddam Hussein's aides following an outcry over the former dictator's hanging.
In a radio interview Wednesday, Talabani, a Kurd, said authorities should not be hasty in enforcing the death penalty against Saddam's half-brother, Barzan al-Tikriti, and the former head of the Revolutionary Court, Awad al-Bandar.
A special court, set up by U.S. authorities in Iraq, sentenced to death the two men along with Saddam on charges of killing 148 people in the Shiite town of Dujail following a foiled assassination attempt against the former president in the 1980s.
Talabani cited "inappropriate conditions" for his call, but it is believed to be linked to the domestic, Arab and international public outcry over Hussein's hanging in Baghdad on Dec. 30, the first day of Islam's al-Adha feast, in a manner largely seen as more of a lynching by an avenging Shiite mob.
Tikriti and Bandar were due to be hanged on the same day as Hussein, but was delayed for undeclared reasons.
Talabani's call came a day after government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the two men will be executed in the next few days.
Meanwhile, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the most powerful Shiite organization backing the government, urged the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to speed up the execution of all those convicted and sentenced to death in the future.
