Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was an Iraqi politician and revolutionary who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 1979 to 2003. He also served as prime minister of Iraq from 1979 to 1991 and later from 1994 to 2003. He was a leading member of the revolutionary Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party and later the Baghdad-based Ba'ath Party and its regional organization, the Iraqi Ba'ath Party, which espoused Ba'athism, a mix of Arab nationalism and Arab socialism.
Tariq Aziz was an Iraqi politician who served as Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs and a close advisor of President Saddam Hussein. Their association began in the 1950s when both were activists for the then-banned Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party. He was both an Arab nationalist and a member of the Chaldean Catholic Church.
Taha Yasin Ramadan al-Jizrawi was an Iraqi politician and military officer of Kurdish origin, who served as one of the three vice presidents of Iraq from March 1991 to the fall of Saddam Hussein in April 2003.
Ali Hassan Majid al-Tikriti, nicknamed Chemical Ali, was an Iraqi politician and military commander under Saddam Hussein who served as defence minister, interior minister, and chief of the Iraqi Intelligence Service. He was also the governor of Kuwait during much of the 1990–91 Gulf War.
The Halabja massacre, also known as the Halabja chemical attack, was a massacre of Kurdish people that took place on 16 March 1988, during the Iraqi–Kurdish conflict in the closing days of the Iran–Iraq War in Halabja, Kurdistan, Iraq. The attack was part of the Al-Anfal Campaign in Kurdistan, as well as part of the Iraqi Army's attempt to repel the Iranian Operation Zafar 7. It took place 48 hours after the capture of the town by the Iranian Army. A United Nations (UN) medical investigation concluded that mustard gas was used in the attack, along with unidentified nerve agents.
Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri was an Iraqi politician and army field marshal. He served as Vice Chairman of the Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council until the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq and was regarded as the closest advisor and deputy under President Saddam Hussein. He led the Iraqi insurgent group Naqshbandi Army.
Barzan Ibrahim Hassan al-Tikriti, also known as Barazan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, Barasan Ibrahem Alhassen and Barzan Hassan, was one of three half-brothers of Saddam Hussein, and a leader of the Mukhabarat, the Iraqi intelligence service. Despite falling out of favour with Saddam at one time, he was believed to have been a close presidential adviser at the time of his capture by U.S. forces in 2003. On 15 January 2007, Barzan was hanged for crimes against humanity. He was decapitated by the hangman's rope after errors were made calculating his body weight and length of drop from the platform.
Halabja is a city in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and the capital of Halabja Governorate, located about 240 km (150 mi) northeast of Baghdad and 14 km (9 mi) from the Iranian border.
The Iraqi High Tribunal (IHT), formerly the Iraqi Special Tribunal and sometimes referred to as the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal, is a body established under Iraqi national law to try Iraqi nationals or residents accused of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes or other serious crimes committed between 1968 and 2003. It organized the trial of Saddam Hussein and other members of his Ba'ath Party regime.
The Anfal campaign was a counterinsurgency operation which was carried out by Ba'athist Iraq from February to September 1988 during the Iraqi–Kurdish conflict at the end of the Iran–Iraq War. The campaign targeted rural Kurds because its purpose was to eliminate Kurdish rebel groups and Arabize strategic parts of the Kirkuk Governorate. The Iraqis committed atrocities on the local Kurdish population, mostly civilians.
Raghad Saddam Hussein is an Iraqi in exile and the eldest daughter of former Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein.
Lieutenant General Abid Al-Hamid Mahmud al-Tikriti was an Iraqi military officer and Saddam Hussein's personal secretary.
The trial of Saddam Hussein was the trial of the deposed President of Iraq Saddam Hussein by the Iraqi Interim Government for crimes against humanity during his time in office.
Awad Hamad al-Bandar (Arabic: عواد حمد البندر السعدون, romanized: ʿAwād Ḥamad al-Bandar al-Saʿdūn; was an Iraqi chief judge under Saddam Hussein's presidency. He was a member of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party and was the head of the Revolutionary Court which issued death sentences against 143 Dujail residents, in the aftermath of the failed assassination attempt on the president on 8 July 1982.
Rizgar Mohammed Amin is the former chief judge of the Iraqi Special Tribunal's Al-Dujail trial. He is the only judge whose name was revealed on the trial's opening on 19 October 2005, the names of the other four judges and all but two of his four colleagues faces not allowed to be shown during the televised portions of the trial.(Telegraph.co.uk – 12:30AM GMT 15 January 2006)
Capital punishment in Iraq is a legal penalty. It was commonly used by the government of Saddam Hussein, was temporarily halted after the US-led 2003 invasion of Iraq that deposed Hussein, and has since been reinstated. Executions are carried out by hanging.
The execution of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein took place on 30 December 2006. Saddam was sentenced to death by hanging, after being convicted of crimes against humanity by the Iraqi Special Tribunal for the Dujail massacre—the killing of 148 Iraqi Shi'ites in the town of Dujail—in 1982, in retaliation for an assassination attempt against him.
Bakhtiar Amin is a Kurdish Iraqi politician who was the Human Rights Minister in the Iraqi Interim Government from June 2004 to May 2005.
The Iraqi–Kurdish conflict consists of a series of wars, rebellions and disputes by the Kurds against the central authority of Iraq starting in the 20th century shortly after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I. Some put the marking point of the conflict beginning to the attempt by Mahmud Barzanji to establish an independent Kingdom of Kurdistan, while others relate to the conflict as only the post-1961 insurrection by the Barzanis. Since the US-led invasion of Iraq and the subsequent recognition of the Kurdistan Region (KRI) in the new Iraqi constitution, the number and scope of armed clashes between the central government of Iraq and the Kurds have significantly decreased. In spite of that, however, there are still outstanding issues that continue to cause strife such as the disputed territories of northern Iraq and rights to oil and gas, leading to occasional armed clashes. In September 2023, Masrour Barzani sent a letter to the President of the United States expressing concerns about a possible collapse of the Kurdistan Region and calling for the United States to intervene.
Reactions to the execution of Saddam Hussein were varied. Some strongly supported the execution, particularly those personally affected by Saddam's actions as leader. Some of these victims wished to see him brought to trial for his other actions, alleged to have resulted in a much greater number of deaths than those for which he was convicted. Some believed the execution would boost morale in Iraq, while others feared it would incite further violence. Many in the international community supported Saddam being brought to justice but objected in particular to the use of capital punishment. Saddam's supporters condemned the action as unjust.
