Hanging of Saddam henchmen postponed

BAGHDAD, Jan. 4 (UPI) -- Iraq postponed the executions Thursday of Saddam Hussein's half brother and the judge who approved the killing of 148 Shiite men and boys.

Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, who headed the secret police under Saddam, and the judge, Awad al-Bander, were convicted with Saddam of the 1982 Dujail massacre and were expected to be hanged when he was.

But Iraqi authorities decided that Saddam should die alone and granted the other two men another reprieve because of the uproar over the way Saddam's execution was carried out, The Telegraph reported.

Iraqi officials say that the two will inevitably be put to death.

"Nobody can stop the carrying out of court verdicts," Sami al-Askari, a member of Parliament and of the commission that drafted the new Iraqi constitution, told the BBC. "The court's statute does not allow even the president of the republic or the prime minister to commute sentences, let alone grant a pardon. Therefore, no pressure can stop the executions."