World News
Sunni rebels 'execute' Saddam's judge: report─── 09:48 Tue, 24 Jun 2014
Baghdad - The Sunni militants who have seized vast swathes of territory in Iraq in a lightning offensive against the Baghdad government have reportedly captured and executed the judge who sentenced former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to death.
Britain's Daily Mail said that the claimed killing of Judge Rauf Rashid Abd al-Rahman was in retaliation for his sentencing the dictator to death by hanging in 2006.
According to the report, the Iraqi government has not confirmed the killing of Rahman, but officials had also not denied reports that he was captured last week.
Rahman headed the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal during Saddam's trial.
According to a Facebook post by Khalil Attieh, a Jordanian MP, the judge had been arrested and sentenced to death by the rebels.
"Iraqi revolutionaries arrested him and sentenced him to death in retaliation for the death of the martyr Saddam Hussein," Attieh reportedly said.
The claims emerged as US Secretary of State John Kerry yesterday pledged "intense" support for Iraq against the "existential threat" of a major militant offensive pushing towards Baghdad from the north and west.
Flying in from Jordan, Kerry met with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and other Iraqi leaders to urge a speeding up of the government formation process in order to face down the insurgents.
The US's "support will be intense, sustained, and if Iraq's leaders take the steps needed to bring the country together, it will be effective," Kerry said in Baghdad. But the danger to Iraq, he said, is dire.
Maliki's security spokesman said yesterday that "hundreds" of soldiers had been killed since the insurgents, led by the powerful jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, launched their offensive on June 9.
There have been reports that Sunni groups, including members of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath party, were leading the fight against Maliki.
Timeslive
