NP - As Hussein Faded, Prisoners Were Executed

[David Morris]

 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/28/international/worldspecial/28PRIS.html
 
As Hussein Faded, Prisoners Were Executed
By IAN FISHER


BU GHRAIB, Iraq, April 27 — They were killed perhaps three weeks ago,
blindfolded, their hands bound behind their backs, then shot by a government
that was itself about to die. Even as American troops neared the huge prison
here, Iraq continued to execute suspected spies.

In the last two days, relatives looking for loved ones have unearthed 14
bodies, not inside a cemetery, but in a pit just outside Block 5, which was
reserved for foreigners. Neighbors said they had found 10 more corpses on the
prison grounds — like the others, all in civilian clothes and apparently killed
recently. 

"He is a criminal of war," said Jumaa Khalef, 21, one of the neighbors,
referring to Saddam Hussein, who was forced from power on April 9, perhaps a
day or two after the men here were killed. "Someone who will kill people like
this — what else can you call him?"

Iraqis almost never learned the fate of loved ones executed in Mr. Hussein's 24
years as president, though the personal stories told in the two weeks since
then reveal a scale of torture and killing that may surpass the predictions of
even his worst critics. 
 

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo.
http://search.yahoo.com