almotamar.net - March 20 (Bloomberg) -- Saddam Hussein's former deputy was executed before dawn today in Iraq for crimes against humanity, the country's government said.
Taha Yassin Ramadan, a former vice president, was the fourth member of Hussein's regime to be hanged over the 1982 killing of 148 Shiite Muslims in the village of Dujail.
``He was executed at 3 a.m. Baghdad time at an army base,'' Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in a telephone interview from Baghdad. ``A member of his defense team and interior and justice ministry officials were present when the execution was carried out.''
Hussein, 69, was hanged on Dec. 30 for his part in the massacre. Footage of the execution filmed on a mobile phone and posted on the Internet provoked international criticism and outrage among Iraq's Sunni Muslims, his base of support. Hussein's half-brother Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, a former head of Iraq's disbanded Revolutionary Court, were executed on Jan. 15.
Ramadan telephoned his lawyer yesterday to inform him of the timing of the execution, said Badea Arif, Hussein's former lawyer, who is close to Ramadan's defense team, in a telephone interview from Baghdad. ``He asked his friends to pray for him,'' Arif said, adding that Ramadan will be buried in the town of Tikrit today.
Ramadan was weighed before his execution, al-Dabbagh said, and all legal procedures were observed during the process.
``This is an Iraqi process and an Iraqi decision with respect to the sentence being carried out,'' said Lou Fintor, a spokesman for the U.S. embassy in Baghdad.
The United Nations tried to block Ramadan's execution, saying his death sentence breached international law and describing the trial as unfair.