Dujail Massacre
Encyclopedia
The Dujail Massacre refers to the events following an assassination
attempt against then Iraqi president
, Saddam Hussein
, on July 8, 1982, in the town of Dujail
. Dujail, a town with a large Shiite population and up to 75,000 residents at the time of the incident is located 53 km (32.9 mi) from Baghdad
in the predominantly Sunni
Salaheddin province of Iraq
.
, an organisation involved in the Iran
ian backed insurgency
against Saddam Hussein's Baathist
dictatorship in Iraq during the Iran–Iraq War. Widely viewed in the West as a terrorist
organization at the time, the Dawa party was banned in 1980 and its members sentenced to death in absentia
by the Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council
.
On July 8, 1982, Saddam Hussein
visited the town to make a speech praising local conscripts who had served Iraq in the fight against Iran
. Saddam visited several households and after finishing his speech prepared for his return to Baghdad
. As his motorcade proceeded down the main road, up to a dozen gunmen using the cover of the date palm
orchards that lined both sides of the road opened fire killing two of Saddam’s bodyguards before fleeing on foot. In the ensuing four-hour fire-fight most of the attackers were killed and several were captured.
to Dujail be razed to prevent a repeat of the ambush. On October 14, the Revolutionary Command Council
ordered that the roadside farmland be retitled to the Ministry of Agriculture and the owners compensated for their loss.
By late December, 393 men over the age of 19 and 394 women and children from Dujail and the nearby town of Balad had been arrested. Held in detention
at Abu Graib near Baghdad, an unknown number were torture
d with 138 male adult detainees and ten juveniles being referred to trial before the Revolutionary Court after they confessed to having taken part in the assassination attempt. Over several months the remaining prisoners were transferred to detention centres in the desert to the west. More than 40 of those detained died during interrogation or while in detention. A resident of Dujail later testified at Saddam's trial
in 2005, that he had witnessed the torture and murders during the government reprisal, including the murders of 7 of his 10 brothers. After nearly two years in detention, around 400 detainees, primarily family members of the 148 who had admitted involvement, were sent into exile
to a remote part of southern Iraq. The remaining detainees were released and sent back to Dujail.
for providing armed support for Iran during war, allowing the Revolutionary Court to review the investigation records and confessions before passing sentence. On June 14, the court handed down the mandatory death sentence. On July 23, Saddam signed the court documents authorising the executions and ordered that the homes, buildings, date palms and fruit orchards belonging to those convicted be razed.
On March 23, 1985, 96 of the 105 condemned still living were executed. Two of the condemned were accidentally released while 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 that a decree be issued to declare the Abdel-Amirs "martyrs" and that property confiscated from their relatives be returned. It further recommended that the officer responsible for the mistake be prosecuted. Saddam gave his approval to the recommendation with the officer subsequently being sentenced to three years imprisonment and the decree issued.
Ten children aged between 11 and 17 were originally believed to have been among the 96 executed, but they had in fact 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
.
was hanged
on December 30, 2006.
The charges against Saddam Hussein included razing 250000 acres (101,171.5 ha) of Dujail farmland. However, the source for this figure was an unsourced claim published in a 2005 New York Times article. The claimed area is larger than the total amount of farmland surrounding Dujail, while less than 2% of the town's population had land confiscated or razed. Earlier media reports ranged from thousands to a high of tens of thousands of acres that not only included the land confiscated from those convicted, but also the land cleared to remove 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. Ironically, two of the four Baath Party
officials executed for the massacre
lived in Dujail and the roadside farmland razed included land belonging to both.
Barzan Hassan
, Hussein's half-brother and former Iraqi intelligence chief and Awad Bandar
, former head of Iraq's Revolutionary Court, were hanged on January 15, 2007 for "aiding and abetting
" a crime against humanity by naming the suspected Dawa Party members to be arrested. 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 al-Dujail trial to die by hanging for crimes against humanity.
Assassination
To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...
attempt against then Iraqi president
President of Iraq
The President of Iraq is the head of state of Iraq and "safeguards the commitment to the Constitution and the preservation of Iraq's independence, sovereignty, unity, the security of its territories in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution." The President is elected by the Council of...
, Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
, on July 8, 1982, in the town of Dujail
Dujail
Dujail is a small Shia town in the Salah ad Din Governorate. It is situated about north of Iraq's capital, Baghdad, and has approximately 10,000 inhabitants. It is the site of the 1982 Dujail Massacre....
. Dujail, a town with a large Shiite population and up to 75,000 residents at the time of the incident is located 53 km (32.9 mi) from Baghdad
Baghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...
in the predominantly Sunni
Sunni Islam
Sunni Islam is the largest branch of Islam. Sunni Muslims are referred to in Arabic as ʾAhl ūs-Sunnah wa āl-Ǧamāʿah or ʾAhl ūs-Sunnah for short; in English, they are known as Sunni Muslims, Sunnis or Sunnites....
Salaheddin province of Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
.
Background
Dujail was a stronghold of the Shiite Dawa PartyIslamic Dawa Party
The Islamic Dawa Party or Islamic Call Party is a political party in Iraq. Dawa and the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council are two of the main parties in the religious-Shiite United Iraqi Alliance, which won a plurality of seats in both the provisional January 2005 Iraqi election and the longer-term...
, an organisation involved in the Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
ian backed insurgency
Insurgency
An insurgency is an armed rebellion against a constituted authority when those taking part in the rebellion are not recognized as belligerents...
against Saddam Hussein's Baathist
Baath Party
The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party was a political party mixing Arab nationalist and Arab socialist interests, opposed to Western imperialism, and calling for the renaissance or resurrection and unification of the Arab world into a single state. Ba'ath is also spelled Ba'th or Baath and means...
dictatorship in Iraq during the Iran–Iraq War. Widely viewed in the West as a terrorist
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
organization at the time, the Dawa party was banned in 1980 and its members sentenced to death in absentia
In absentia
In absentia is Latin for "in the absence". In legal use, it usually means a trial at which the defendant is not physically present. The phrase is not ordinarily a mere observation, but suggests recognition of violation to a defendant's right to be present in court proceedings in a criminal trial.In...
by the Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council
Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council
The Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council was established after the military coup in 1968, and was the ultimate decision making body in Iraq before the 2003 American-led invasion. It exercised both executive and legislative authority in the country, with the Chairman and Vice Chairman chosen by a...
.
On July 8, 1982, Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
visited the town to make a speech praising local conscripts who had served Iraq in the fight against Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
. Saddam visited several households and after finishing his speech prepared for his return to Baghdad
Baghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...
. As his motorcade proceeded down the main road, up to a dozen gunmen using the cover of the date palm
Date Palm
The date palm is a palm in the genus Phoenix, cultivated for its edible sweet fruit. Although its place of origin is unknown because of long cultivation, it probably originated from lands around the Persian Gulf. It is a medium-sized plant, 15–25 m tall, growing singly or forming a clump with...
orchards that lined both sides of the road opened fire killing two of Saddam’s bodyguards before fleeing on foot. In the ensuing four-hour fire-fight most of the attackers were killed and several were captured.
Reprisals
Saddam Hussein initially interviewed two of the captured attackers in person before ordering his special security and military forces to round up all suspected Dawa members who lived in Dujail along with their families. He later ordered that orchards on both sides of the road from BaladBalad, Iraq
Balad is a city north of Baghdad in the Salah ad Din Governorate Iraq. It is located within the borders of the so-called Sunni Triangle; however, Balad is a primarily Shiite town of approximately 100,000...
to Dujail be razed to prevent a repeat of the ambush. On October 14, the Revolutionary Command Council
Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council
The Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council was established after the military coup in 1968, and was the ultimate decision making body in Iraq before the 2003 American-led invasion. It exercised both executive and legislative authority in the country, with the Chairman and Vice Chairman chosen by a...
ordered that the roadside farmland be retitled to the Ministry of Agriculture and the owners compensated for their loss.
By late December, 393 men over the age of 19 and 394 women and children from Dujail and the nearby town of Balad had been arrested. Held in detention
Prison
A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...
at Abu Graib near Baghdad, an unknown number were torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
d with 138 male adult detainees and ten juveniles being referred to trial before the Revolutionary Court after they confessed to having taken part in the assassination attempt. Over several months the remaining prisoners were transferred to detention centres in the desert to the west. More than 40 of those detained died during interrogation or while in detention. A resident of Dujail later testified at Saddam's trial
Trial of Saddam Hussein
thumb|300 px| Saddam Hussein sits before an Iraqi judge at a courthouse in Baghdad, 1 July 2004.The Trial of Saddam Hussein was the trial of the deposed President of Iraq Saddam Hussein by the Iraqi Interim Government for crimes against humanity during his time in office.The Coalition Provisional...
in 2005, that he had witnessed the torture and murders during the government reprisal, including the murders of 7 of his 10 brothers. After nearly two years in detention, around 400 detainees, primarily family members of the 148 who had admitted involvement, were sent into exile
Exile
Exile means to be away from one's home , while either being explicitly refused permission to return and/or being threatened with imprisonment or death upon return...
to a remote part of southern Iraq. The remaining detainees were released and sent back to Dujail.
Trial and executions
Following the 1982 confessions by 148 of the accused, the judiciary investigated the evidence in support and in late May 1984, accepted their pleas of guilty to treasonTreason
In law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more extreme acts against one's sovereign or nation. Historically, treason also covered the murder of specific social superiors, such as the murder of a husband by his wife. Treason against the king was known as high treason and treason against a...
for providing armed support for Iran during war, allowing the Revolutionary Court to review the investigation records and confessions before passing sentence. On June 14, the court handed down the mandatory death sentence. On July 23, Saddam signed the court documents authorising the executions and ordered that the homes, buildings, date palms and fruit orchards belonging to those convicted be razed.
On March 23, 1985, 96 of the 105 condemned still living were executed. Two of the condemned were accidentally released while 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 that a decree be issued to declare the Abdel-Amirs "martyrs" and that property confiscated from their relatives be returned. It further recommended that the officer responsible for the mistake be prosecuted. Saddam gave his approval to the recommendation with the officer subsequently being sentenced to three years imprisonment and the decree issued.
Ten children aged between 11 and 17 were originally believed to have been among the 96 executed, but they had in fact been transferred to a prison outside the city of Samawah
Samawah
Samawah or As Samawah is a city in Iraq, 280 kilometres southeast of Baghdad. .The city of Samawah is the modern capital of the Al Muthanna Governorate. The city is located midway between Baghdad and Basra, at the northern edge of the governorate...
. In 1989 the ten juveniles, all now adults, were secretly executed on the orders of the Mukhabarat
Iraqi Intelligence Service
The Iraqi Intelligence Service , also known as the Mukhabarat, General Directorate of Intelligence, or Party Intelligence, was the main state intelligence organization in Iraq under Saddam Hussein...
.
Aftermath
The executions in Dujail were the primary charges for which Saddam HusseinSaddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
was hanged
Execution of Saddam Hussein
The execution of Saddam Hussein took place on December 30, 2006 . Saddam was sentenced to death by hanging, after being found guilty and convicted of crimes against humanity by the Iraqi Special Tribunal for the murder of 148 Iraqi Shi'ite in the town of Dujail in 1982, in retaliation for an...
on December 30, 2006.
The charges against Saddam Hussein included razing 250000 acres (101,171.5 ha) of Dujail farmland. However, the source for this figure was an unsourced claim published in a 2005 New York Times article. The claimed area is larger than the total amount of farmland surrounding Dujail, while less than 2% of the town's population had land confiscated or razed. Earlier media reports ranged from thousands to a high of tens of thousands of acres that not only included the land confiscated from those convicted, but also the land cleared to remove 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. Ironically, two of the four Baath Party
Baath Party
The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party was a political party mixing Arab nationalist and Arab socialist interests, opposed to Western imperialism, and calling for the renaissance or resurrection and unification of the Arab world into a single state. Ba'ath is also spelled Ba'th or Baath and means...
officials executed for the massacre
Massacre
A massacre is an event with a heavy death toll.Massacre may also refer to:-Entertainment:*Massacre , a DC Comics villain*Massacre , a 1932 drama film starring Richard Barthelmess*Massacre, a 1956 Western starring Dane Clark...
lived in Dujail and the roadside farmland razed included land belonging to both.
Barzan Hassan
Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti
Barzan Ibrahim al-Hasan al-Tikriti was one of three half-brothers of Saddam Hussein, and a leader of the Mukhabarat, the Iraqi intelligence service...
, Hussein's half-brother and former Iraqi intelligence chief and Awad Bandar
Awad Hamed al-Bandar
Awad Hamad al-Bandar was an Iraqi chief judge under Saddam Hussein's presidency. He was the head of the Revolutionary Court which issued death sentences against 143 Dujail residents, in the aftermath of the failed assassination attempt on the president on July 8, 1982 Awad Hamad al-Bandar ...
, former head of Iraq's Revolutionary Court, were hanged on January 15, 2007 for "aiding and abetting
Accomplice
At law, an accomplice is a person who actively participates in the commission of a crime, even though they take no part in the actual criminal offense. For example, in a bank robbery, the person who points the gun at the teller and asks for the money is guilty of armed robbery...
" a crime against humanity by naming the suspected Dawa Party members to be arrested. Later, Taha Yassin Ramadan
Taha Yassin Ramadan
Taha Yasin Ramadan al-Jizrawi was a prominent Iraqi Kurd, serving as Vice President of Iraq from March 1991 to the fall of Saddam Hussein in April 2003....
, 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 al-Dujail trial to die by hanging for crimes against humanity.