Former Iraqi vice-president hanged

 

Ramadan was convicted in November of murder, forced deportation and torture, and sentenced to life in prison.

 

Taha Yassin Ramadan

Born in 1938 Bank clerk before enlisting in the army Formed Baath party’s armed wing in 1970 Iraq’s vice-president from 1991 until government ousted in 2003 Captured by Kurds in 2003 Sentenced to life in prison in November 2006 Amended to death sentence in February 2007

A month later, an appeals court said the sentence was too lenient, and returned his case to the High Tribunal, demanding he be sentenced to death.

 

The court agreed to turn it to a death sentence last week.

 

Ramadan is the third Saddam aide to be hanged for crimes against humanity since the former government was ousted by US-led forces four years ago.

 

 

Ramadan’s son, Ahmed, denounced the execution.

 

“It was not an execution. It was a political assassination,” he told Al Jazeera by telephone from the Yemeni capital Sanaa.

 

He said a family representative had attended the execution and that his father’s body would be buried in Tikrit, north Baghdad.

 

Saddam was hanged for the Dujail killings on December 30 while al-Tikriti and Awad Ahmed al-Bandar, the former head of the Revolutionary Court, were executed on January 15.

 

The executions have outraged Iraqi Sunnis and caused concern among international human rights groups, which had appealed for Ramadan’s life.

 

Ramadan had maintained his innocence, saying his duties were limited to economic affairs, not security issues.

 

Human Rights Watch and the International Centre for Transitional Justice have said the evidence against him was insufficient for the death penalty.