Al-Tikriti and al-Bandar executed

Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, Saddam's half-brother and head of the Mukhabarat and Awad Hamad al-Bandar, the chief judge of the Baathist revolutionary court were executed by hanging in the early hours of this morning. Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti was decapitated in the process.

The United States had initially refused to hand over the men seeking to prevent the execution, as they had done with Saddam. However, the United States, aware of al-Malaki's low standing in Da'wa let alone with the rest of the United Iraqi Alliance and mindful that the Iraqi government has strongly protested the US abduction of five Iranian diplomats, relented and handed them over to the Iraqi government, who immediately executed the two men.