Iraq to execute two Saddam aides on Jan 4

Saddam's half-brother, Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti and Awad Ahmed al-Bandar, the former chief judge of revolutionary court, will be put to death at dawn on Thursday.

Saddam Hussein's two former aides will be executed on Thursday, five days after the former dictator was himself hanged in Baghdad, an official at the Prime Minister's office told on Wednesday.

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Saddam's half-brother and former head of intelligence, Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, and Awad Ahmed al-Bandar, the former chief judge of revolutionary court, will be put to death at dawn on Thursday, the official said.

"Their documents have been signed and they will be executed Thursday," he told the agency on condition of anonymity.

The official said the two were however still in the custody of "US authorities."

The two were found guilty along with Saddam by an Iraqi court for executing 148 Shiites from the village of Dujail in the 1980s.

Saddam was hanged on December 30 at a former torture centre in Baghdad's Shiite district of Kadhmiyah and buried a day later at his home village of Awja in northern Iraq.