Judge who sentenced Saddam Hussein to death ‘is captured and executed by ISIS’
Raouf Abdul Rahman sentenced the dictator to death by hanging in 2006
He was reportedly captured and killed by militants last week
Iraqi government is yet to confirm his death, but have not denied his capture
Judge thought to have been killed in retaliation for death of Saddam Hussein
Judge Rahmann, who was born in the Kurdish town of Halabja, took over midway through the trial in January 2006 after previous judge Rizgar Amin was criticised for being too lenient in his dealings with Hussein and his co-defendants.
The father of three had graduated from Baghdad University’s law school in 1963 and worked as a lawyer before he was appointed as the chief judge of the Kurdistan Appeals Court in 1996.
He oversaw Saddam’s trial for crimes against humanity over the killing of 148 people in the town of Dujail following an assassination attempt in 1982, and sentenced him to death by hanging following the guilty verdict.
Judge Rahman had faced claims that he was biased as his home town had been the subject of a poison gas attack in 1988, allegedly ordered by Hussein.
A number of Judge Rahman’s relatives were among the 5,000 people killed in the attack, and during the 1980s he was also reportedly detained and tortured by Saddam’s security agents.
The judge later criticised the way the execution was carried out in December 2006, saying in 2008 that it should not have been carried out in public and branding it ‘uncivilised and backward’.
The hanging had taken place as Sunni Muslims were celebrating the religious festival Eid al-Adha, and a video of the execution showed the former leader being taunted by members of the Shi’ite group.
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