Decapitation In The Latest Execution In Iraq

Saddam Hussein's half-brother was decapitated in a horrific execution blunder yesterday.

News that the tyrant's feared intelligence chief's head was ripped clean off by the noose as he plunged from the gallows caused anger among Sunni Arabs, still outraged by the taunting of Saddam at his hanging.

Terror chief Barzan Ibrahim al- Tikriti was hanged alongside former Iraqi judge Awad Hamed al-Bandar.

Government officials showed journalists film of the men side by side in red jumpsuits on the scaffold, looking fearful before they were hooded and nooses were placed around their necks.

There was no disturbance in the execution chamber at the same former secret police base where Saddam died on December 30. Bandar muttered the prayer: "There is no god but God."

Barzan, 55, vocal during the year-long trial for crimes against humanity, appeared to tremble quietly. At 3am Iraqi time (midnight GMT), as the bodies fell, Barzan's head flew off and came to rest by his body. The empty noose hung above him. Bandar swung dead on his rope. Officials said they would not release the film publicly.

Barzan ran the Mukhabarat intelligence service from 1979 to 1983 and personally oversaw torture. During his trial over the 1982 killings of 148 Shias from Dujail, north of Baghdad, a witness said his agents put people in a meat grinder.

Hangmen gauge the length of rope needed to snap the neck without creating enough force to sever the head.

Saleem al-Jibouri, a senior Sunni Arab lawmaker, said Barzan's body may have been weakened by cancer.