Ewen MacAskill, diplomatic editor
Friday November 3, 2000
The Guardian

Barbarous acts perpetrated on Iraqi political prisonersand women persist under Saddam Hussein's regime inspite of a decade of international economic sanctionsengineered by the west to topple him, according torestricted Foreign Office documents obtained by theGuardian.

These state that in the last few weeks PresidentSaddam and members of his inner circle have signedorders for executions and other acts of brutality.

The material in the documents is said to have comedirectly from informants in Baghdad and, indirectly,from exiles. It will help Britain and the US in theirefforts to shore up the sanctions - imposed on Iraq forigniting the Gulf war by invading Kuwait in 1990, butnow under challenge.

They will argue that the world must go on trying toforce such a monstrous regime out. Opponents willargue that the abuses show how ineffective sanctionshave been in weakening the dictatorship.

The Foreign Office papers, classified as restricted,provide details of the extensive prison network inBaghdad and on individual cases that confirm theregime's reputation as one of the cruellest in the world.

Among many incidents, the documents say that:

•More than 50 mental health patients were executed inplace of prisoners with the means to bribe their wayout.

•Eight prisoners were executed in October for defacingmurals of Saddam Hussein.

•Thirty prostitutes were beheaded in a "clean-up"during the last month and their heads were left on thedoorsteps of their homes.

•A man's tongue was cut off in September under a newdecree making slander of President Saddam anamputation crime.

While the international debate has gone on in recentyears about the sanctions imposed on Iraq, and thebomb ing of its capital and missile sites by Britain andUS, the regime's abuses have tended to be overlooked,partly because information is so hard to get.

One of the Foreign Office papers says that the Iraqigovernment is obsessive about cataloguing its abuses."Each execution or torture order is signed by animmediate member of Saddam Hussein's family or hisclosest advisers." It adds: "The orders allow thesignatory to record how they want the victim to betortured or to die." The tor ture and execution ordersare said to be held on the eighth floor of the ministry ofinterior's main building in Baghdad. "None of thenormal lifts in the building stop at the eighth floor. Thisis only accessible by its own special lift."

Among the signatories are President Saddam, his twosons, Uday and Qusay, and various relatives includingthe president's half-brothers. A former minister of theinterior, Watban Ibrahim al-Hassan, is said to have"had every execution videoed. Copies of the videoswere kept in a vault in Hassan's office on the secondfloor of the ministry".

Among the many prisons dotted round Baghdad, theMahjar (Sanctuary), near Palestine Street, holds about600-700 political prisoners, according to thedocuments. To maintain the fear factor, and give animpression to the public of impartiality, the presidenthas imprisoned relatives of his inner circle there toshow that no one is immune.

"These high-level prisoners were held in the cells fordetainees rather than in the prison itself and were onlythere for a number of days," one document says.Among those held was Ziyad Aziz, son of the deputyprime minister, Tariq Aziz. The document de scribesthe layout of the prison in detail. "The execution area,the hadiqa (garden) is located near the women's [partof the] prison. The hadiqua is an open area with asandbank covered by an awning" where prisoners werekilled by machine gun. Between 1993 and 1998 about3,000 prisoners were executed there, it says.

At another Baghdad prison, Abu Gharaib, death-rowinmates are said to have been able to buy theirfreedom from the governor for $5,000: "To meet thequota of people executed, and to avoid this scam beinguncovered, someone would need to be executed. Theprison governor devised a scheme whereby he wouldtake a patient from al-Sha ma'eel mental hospital to beexecuted in place of the released prisoner." About50-60 people died in this way until both the governorand the director of the hospital were transferred in July,it is alleged.

One of the groups carrying out the recent drive againstprostitutes - the Fedayeen Saddam militia set up byUday - is said to have "beheaded about 30 prostitutesin Baghdad, Basra and other major cities. The ...heads were left on the front doorsteps of theprostitutes' homes as a deterrent."

Another paper reveals that last month "the Iraqiauthorities executed eight prisoners on charges offorming an opposition organisation and defacing severalmurals depicting Saddam Hussein.

"Muhammed al-Naji, an engineer from Baghdadprovince, was the first to be charged with leading theorganisation. His body, together with those of three ofhis companions, were handed on to their families onOctober 2."

When in September the authorities began cutting offthe tongue of anyone slandering the president or hisfamily, an early victim is said to have been drivenaround his home suburb, New Baghdad, "with aloudspeaker announcing the crime and thepunishment".