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BAGHDAD - Saddam Hussein's half-brother and another former aide to the executed Iraqi President stood side by side on the scaffold on Monday, in official film of their hanging shown to journalists by the Iraqi Government.
Moments later, as the trapdoors swung open, they dropped and the rope severed the hooded head of Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, Saddam's younger half-brother and former intelligence chief.
Government officials said they had decided not to distribute any part of the film to the public - unlike footage it showed of Saddam standing on the gallows.
The decision to give a screening for a number of Iraqi and foreign journalists may have been intended to defuse speculation among Saddam's resentful Sunni Arab minority that the beheading was a deliberate mutilation of the body by officials of the Shiite-led Government.
The taunting of Saddam by Shiite observers at his hanging on December 30 - revealed in an illicit mobile phone video on the internet - had already raised sectarian tensions in a nation on the brink of civil war.
As soon as the Government spokesman, announcing the executions, revealed what he called the "rare" mishap of the decapitation, some Sunni leaders voiced suspicions that officials had mutilated the body of Barzan, a hate figure for millions of Shiites.
As with Saddam two weeks ago, the bodies were handed over to Sunni tribal leaders and officials in Saddam's home town of Tikrit, so there was no way of concealing the fact that the head was severed - apparently because of an error by the hangmen in setting the noose or the length of the rope.
The result was gruesome.
While the body of 61-year-old Awad Hamad al-Bander, former president of Saddam's Revolutionary Court, swayed on its rope, that of Barzan, 55, lay on the ground next to his head in a pool of blood, the noose swinging empty above.
Both men had appeared subdued, trembling and frightened as they stood on the scaffold, in contrast to Saddam's strikingly upright and defiant pose at his hanging two weeks ago.
Standing in orange, US-style prison jumpsuits - compared with Saddam's elegant black coat - they also accepted black hoods, unlike their former leader.
Awad prayed but Barzan was silent, apparently in shock, the attending prosecutor said.
Long drop hanging method meant to be more humane
* Hanging is the suspension of a person by a cord wrapped around the neck, causing death.
* Throughout history hanging has been used as a form of capital punishment in various forms.
* The form used in Iraq is modelled on the 19th-century long drop method of execution used in Britain, which formed the Iraqi state after World War I.
* Four types of drop have been used in hanging: the short drop, suspension, standard and long drop. In all but the last, subjects can remain conscious for minutes and eventually die of strangulation and/or loss of blood to the brain.
* The 19th-century long drop through a trap door is intended to be more humane, generating enough force from the tightening of the rope and the twisting of the noose knot under the jaw to break the neck.
* A calculation is made based on the convict's weight, height and build to determine the drop needed to break the neck - typically 1.5m-2.5m.
* When the neck breaks and severs the spine, the subject immediately loses consciousness. Brain death follows in minutes. But if the drop is too short, the subject can be strangled. If it is too long, the subject can be decapitated.
- REUTERS
