1982 mass killing in Dujail, Iraq
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Pre-war incidents
Iraqi invasion of Iran
(1980)
Stalemate (1981)
Iranian offensives to free Iranian territory (1981?82)
Iranian offensives in Iraq (1982?84)
Iranian offensives in Iraq (1985?87)
Final stages (1988)
Tanker War
International incidents
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The
Dujail massacre
was a mass killing of
Shiite
rebels by the
Ba'athist Iraqi government
on 8 July 1982 in
Dujail
,
Iraq
. The massacre was committed in retaliation to an earlier assassination attempt by the Iranian-backed
Islamic Dawa Party
against the then
President of Iraq
,
Saddam Hussein
. The town of Dujail had a large Shia population, with 75,000 residents at the time of the incident, and was a well-known stronghold of the Dawa Party. It is located approximately 53 km (33 mi) from the capital of
Baghdad
, in the
Sunni
-majority
Saladin Governorate
of Iraq.
Hundreds of men, women and children were detained after the failed assassination attempt; more than 140 people were sentenced and executed
[1]
for their alleged involvement in the plot, including four people who were mistakenly killed during the mass executions. Hundreds more were sent into
exile
and their houses, farms and properties were demolished.
Following
his capture
and subsequent
trial
during the
Iraq War
, Saddam Hussein
was hanged
on 30 December 2006 for
crimes against humanity
in connection with his involvement in the Dujail massacre. Many others, including Hussein's brother, were also sentenced and executed for crimes against humanity.
Background
[
edit
]
The
Shia
-dominated town of
Dujail
was a stronghold of the
Islamic Dawa Party
, an
Islamist
organization involved in the
Iranian
-backed
insurgency
[
citation needed
]
against Saddam Hussein's
Ba'athist regime
in
Iraq
during the
Iran?Iraq War
. Widely viewed in the
West
[
dubious
–
discuss
]
as a
terrorist organization
at the time,
[
citation needed
]
the Dawa Party was banned by the Iraqi regime in 1980 and its members sentenced to death
in absentia
by the
Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council
.
[2]
Events
[
edit
]
On 8 July 1982,
Saddam Hussein
visited
Dujail
to make a speech praising local
conscripts
who had served
Iraq
in the
ongoing war
against neighbouring
Iran
. Hussein visited several households, and after finishing his speech, he prepared for his return to the capital city of
Baghdad
. As his
motorcade
proceeded down the main road, up to a dozen gunmen used the cover of the
date palm
orchards that lined both sides of the road to open fire, killing two of his bodyguards before fleeing on foot. In the ensuing four-hour-long firefight, most of the attackers were killed and several were captured.
[3]
[4]
Reprisals
[
edit
]
Saddam Hussein
personally interviewed two of the captured attackers before he ordered his special security and military forces to round up all suspected members of the
Islamic Dawa Party
who lived in
Dujail
, along with their families. He later ordered the razing of orchards on both sides of the road from
Balad
to Dujail to prevent a repeat of the ambush.
[4]
On 14 October 1982, the
Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council
ordered the retitling of the roadside farmland to the
Ministry of Agriculture
and the compensation of the owners for their loss.
[5]
By late December 1982, 393 men over the age of 19 as well as 394 women and children from Dujail and the nearby town of Balad had been arrested.
[6]
Held in detention at the
Abu Ghraib prison
near
Baghdad
, 138 male adult detainees and ten juveniles were tried before the Revolutionary Court after they confessed to having taken part in the assassination attempt.
[7]
Over several months, the remaining prisoners were transferred to detention centers in the desert to the west. One of the prisons was
Nugra Salman
.
[8]
More than 40 of those detained died during interrogation or in detention.
[9]
A resident of Dujail later testified at Saddam's
2005 trial
that he had witnessed torture and murders during the reprisal, including the murders of seven of his ten brothers.
[10]
After nearly two years in detention, around 400 detainees, primarily family members of the 148 who had confessed to involvement, were sent into internal
exile
in a remote part of southern Iraq. The remaining detainees were released and sent back to Dujail.
[7]
Trial and execution of suspects
[
edit
]
Following the 1982 confessions of 148 of the accused, the judiciary investigated the evidence in support and in late May 1984, it accepted their pleas of guilty to
treason
for providing armed support for Iran during the war, allowing the Revolutionary Court to review the investigation records and confessions before it sentenced the suspects. On 14 June 1984, the court handed down the mandatory death sentence. On 23 July 1984, Saddam signed the court documents authorising the executions and ordered the razing of the homes, buildings, date palms and fruit orchards of the convicted.
On March 23, 1985, 96 of the 105 condemned still living were executed. Two of the condemned were accidentally released, and a third was mistakenly transferred to another prison and survived. The 96 executed included four members of the Abdel-Amir family who had previously been found not guilty and ordered released. They were instead mistakenly executed. An investigation recommended for a decree to be issued to declare the Abdel-Amirs "martyrs" and the return of the property confiscated from their relatives. It further recommended the prosecution of the officer responsible. Saddam gave his approval to the recommendation and issued the decree. The officer would be sentenced to three years of imprisonment.
[9]
Ten children aged between 11 and 17 were originally believed to have been among the 96 executed, but they had actually been transferred to a prison outside the city of
Samawah
. In 1989, the ten juveniles, all now adults, were secretly executed on the orders of the
Mukhabarat
.
[9]
After the fall of Saddam
[
edit
]
The executions in Dujail were the primary charges for which Saddam was
hanged
on 30 December 2006.
[3]
[11]
At 1 a.m., on 13 December 2006,
Barzan Hassan
, Saddam's half-brother and the former Iraqi intelligence chief, and
Awad Bandar
, the former head of Iraq's Revolutionary Court, were escorted from their cells and told by their American guards that they were to be executed at dawn with Saddam. Nine hours later they were returned to their cells, as Iraqi authorities had decided to execute Saddam alone. They were both later hanged on 15 January 2007 for "
aiding and abetting
" a crime against humanity for naming the suspected Dawa Party members to be arrested.
Barzan Hassan was decapitated when he was hanged because of the wrong measurements of the rope. On January 25, 2010, Saddam's first cousin,
Ali Hassan al-Majid
, was hanged.
[6]
[12]
Later,
Taha Yassin Ramadan
, Saddam's former deputy and vice-president who, as national commander of the Popular Army, had
command responsibility
(originally sentenced to life in prison but later to death by hanging), was likewise charged with "aiding and abetting" for arresting Dawa members and razing the orchards. Ramadan was executed on March 20, 2007, the fourth and last man in the Dujail trial to be hanged for crimes against humanity.
[6]
[13]
The charges against Saddam included razing 250,000 acres (100,000 ha) of Dujail farmland. However, the source for the figure was an unsourced claim published in a 2005 article in
The New York Times
.
[14]
The claimed area is larger than the total amount of farmland surrounding Dujail, and less than 2% of the city's population had land confiscated or razed. Earlier media reports ranged from "thousands" to a high of "tens of thousands" of acres, which included the land confiscated from those convicted but also the land cleared to remove places of cover along the road from Balad to Baghdad for which the owners were compensated. There is no record of how many acres were actually razed. Two of the four
Ba'ath Party
officials who were executed for the massacre lived in Dujail, and the roadside farmland razed included land that belonged to both.
[15]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
"Saddam Hussein Fast Facts"
.
CNN
. Retrieved
1 November
2017
.
- ^
Wright, Robin (2001).
Sacred Rage: the wrath of militant Islam
.
Simon & Schuster
.
ISBN
0-7432-3342-5
.
- ^
a
b
Menendez, James (25 November 2005).
"Seeking Justice in Dujail"
.
BBC
. Retrieved
18 August
2009
.
- ^
a
b
"Saddam video shows calm before storm"
.
CNN
. 19 October 2005
. Retrieved
18 August
2009
.
- ^
Revolutionary Command Council Decision Number 1283 dated 14 October 1982
- ^
a
b
c
"Judging Dujail (section 7)"
.
Human Rights Watch
. 19 November 2006
. Retrieved
23 August
2009
.
- ^
a
b
"Judging Dujail (section 3)"
.
Human Rights Watch
. 19 November 2006
. Retrieved
18 August
2009
.
- ^
"Das Massaker von Dudschail"
.
Der Tagesspiegel Online
(in German). 19 October 2005.
ISSN
1865-2263
. Retrieved
4 September
2022
.
- ^
a
b
c
"Prosecutors: Saddam approved executions"
.
China Daily
. 1 March 2006
. Retrieved
18 August
2009
.
- ^
Amman, Paul McGeough Chief Herald Correspondent in (7 December 2005).
"Witness won't let Saddam intimidate him"
.
The Sydney Morning Herald
. Retrieved
4 September
2022
.
- ^
At Saddam's Hearings, U.S. May Be on Trial
Archived
January 10, 2007, at the
Library of Congress
Web Archives (
Znet
;1 December 2005).
- ^
Report: Saddam's half-brother, other co-defendant hanged
CNN
January 15, 2007 accessed via Wayback Machine June 15, 2012
- ^
Saddam's former deputy hanged in Iraq
20 March 2007
- ^
Burns, John (3 July 2005).
"A Town That Bled Under Saddam Hails His Trial"
.
The New York Times
. Retrieved
3 December
2009
.
- ^
Stephens, Eli (26 May 2006).
"Dujail - searching for the facts"
.
Uruknet
. Retrieved
3 December
2009
.
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Participants
&
supporters
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Timeline
| Prelude
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Iraqi invasion
(1980)
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Stalemate (1981)
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Liberation of Iranian territories (1982)
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Iranian offensives (1982?84)
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Iranian offensives (1985?87)
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Final stages (1988)
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US intervention
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Related
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