M A I N   N E W S

Saddam’s ‘dirty dozen’

Baghdad, November 5
The seven men tried alongside Saddam Hussein for crimes against humanity included two members of the ousted president’s inner circle and five lesser officials, one of whom was acquitted today.

Barzan Ibrahim Hassan al-Tikriti is one of Saddam’s three half-brothers and a former director of the feared Mukhabarat intelligence service, while Taha Yassin Ramadan served as vice-president from 1991.

Barzan was sentenced to death and Ramadan was given life in prison.

Both men took part in the 1968 coup that brought the Baath party to power.

Along with Saddam, they were tried for the killing of 148 Iraqi Shias from the village of Dujail, north of Baghdad, after a failed attempt on the former dictator’s life in 1982.

Following are pen portraits of Saddam’s seven co-defendants:

Barzan Ibrahim Hassan al-Tikriti Sentence: Death by hanging

Detained on April 16, 2003, he was number 52 on the wanted list issued by US commanders after their March, 2003, invasion, and five of clubs in a pack of playing cards issued to troops.

Hot-tempered and secretive, Barzan had a series of rows with other members of Saddam’s Tikriti clan, notably the president’s elder son, Uday, but family ties meant he was always welcomed back.

A 1988 dispute erupted over Barzan’s opposition to the marriage of one of Saddam’s daughters to a rival member of the Tikriti clan, Hussein Kamel Hassan, friends said.

And in 2003, Barzan opposed Saddam’s younger son, Qusay, succeeding his father as president.

But despite the disagreements, Barzan remained one of the president’s most trusted aides. He managed Saddam’s personal fortune until 1995 and is also believed to have coordinated covert purchases in Europe for the regime’s prized weapons programmes.

Being Iraqi Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva from 1988 to 1998, gave him the perfect cover, and he is also believed to have set up arrangements to circumvent the UN sanctions clamped on Iraq after Saddam’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

He also coordinated Baghdad’s intelligence network in Europe and managed Saddam’s assets in European banks, according to opponents of the ousted regime.

He returned home in late 1998 after his wife died of cancer. A source close to Barzan said during this period, he urged Saddam to abolish the ruling Revolution Command Council (RCC) and proposed forming a government of technocrats, which he himself would head.

Born in 1951, Barzan was still in his teens when he took part in the coup that brought his half-brother into the circles of power. A father of eight, he studied law and political science at Baghdad’s Al-Mustansiriyah University.

US officials have characterised him as a member of "Saddam's dirty dozen", responsible for much of the torture and murder for which the regime became notorious.

The charges against him dated from when he headed the secret police, from early 1982 to late 1983, at the height of the devastating Iran-Iraq war.

He was accused of participating in the 1982 massacre of 148 residents of Dujail village as punishment for a failed assassination bid against Saddam.

Barzan may also stand trial later for other crimes, including the 1983 disappearance of thousands of members of the Barzani clan of Massoud Barzani, the former rebel leader who now heads the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq.

He himself has been diagnosed with cancer and a number of calls were made for his release for treatment on humanitarian grounds.

His lawyer, Tamer Hammud Hadi, was wounded in an attack that also killed the attorney of co-defendant Taha Yassin Ramadan.

Taha Yassin Ramadan Sentence: life in prison

Saddam’s former vice-president, detained on August 18, 2003, by Kurdish special forces, was number 20 on the wanted list and 10 of diamonds in the pack of playing cards.

A member of the RCC who had been one of Saddam's closest aides since his years of clandestine activity in the 1960s, Ramadan was known as one of the regime’s "enforcers".

In 1970, just two years after the Baath party seized power, he presided over a revolutionary court that executed 44 officers accused of plotting to overthrow the regime.

When he served as industry minister in the 1970s, he reportedly had a single policy for the sector, execute all shirkers.

A faithful follower of Saddam, he frequently represented the reclusive president on foreign trips.

He is reported to have lost 27 kg when Saddam accused his ministers of getting fat amid mounting popular anger at the alleged corruption of his regime.

Born in 1938 to a peasant family near Iraq’s main northern city of Mosul, Ramadan worked as a bank clerk after leaving school before becoming a full-time Baath party activist.

Ramadan, who hailed the 1991 Gulf war as a victory for Iraq, has been accused by former opposition groups of hosting terror chief Osama bin Laden’s deputy Ayman al-Zawahari in Baghdad in 1998.

He survived a number of assassination attempts, including two in 1997 and one in 1999.

Awad Ahmed al-Bandar al-Sadun Sentence: death

A former chief judge of the revolutionary court and deputy head of Saddam’s office.

Abdullah Khadem Ruweid, his son Mezhar Abdullah Ruweid, Ali Daeh Ali and Mohammad Azzam al-Ali

Former Baath party officials with responsibility for the Dujail area from which the massacred villagers came.

Mohammed Azzam al-Aali: acquitted.

Abdullah Khadem Ruweid: 15 years in prison.

Mezhar Abdullah Ruweid: 15 years in prison.

Ali Daeh Ali: 15 years in prison. — AFP