An official video shows the decapitated body of Saddam Hussein’s half-brother lying below the gallows with his severed head laying several yards away. The video shows Barzan Ibrahim, Saddam’s half-brother and former intelligence chief, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, head of Iraq’s Revolutionary Court, being hanged side by side in red prison jumpsuits with black hoods on their heads. After the trap doors opened, al-Bandar was dangling from the rope while Ibrahim’s body was lying on the floor, chest down, with his hood-covered head yards away. An Iraqi government spokesman said the decapitation was a “rare incident”, but that all laws and rules were respected, unlike Saddam’s execution.

Khalaf al-Olayan, leader of the main Sunni bloc in parliament, demanded to see the video documentation of the execution. “It is impossible for a person to be decapitated during a hanging,” he told Al-Jazeera television. “This shows that they have mutilated the body and this is a violation of the law. We want to see the video that was taken during the execution of the two men in order for them (government) to prove what they are saying.” An Egyptian forensics expert told Al-Jazeera that decapitations sometimes occur during hangings if the rope used is of the wrong quality or the people carrying out the executions are inexperienced.

Ibrahim’s son-in-law said the family was not informed of the execution a day in advance, as is required, but found out about the hanging and decapitation through the news. He expressed further dissatisfaction with the Shia-led government by saying, “They still want more Iraqi bloodshed. To hell with this democracy.” The US however, has stated that the hanging of Saddam and his co-defendants has brought “justice” to Iraqis. The death penalty is banned in the EU as well as in most democratic nations throughout the Pacific and Latin America. However, it still exists in 68 nations around the world, those being generally more authoritarian in nature, including the United States.

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