On August 10, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein ordered...

On August 10, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein ordered the execution of 26 people in a Baghdad prison, according to a statement issued by the Iraqi Communist Party's Human Rights Center on September 13. The Center, based in Shaqlawa in Kurdish-held northern Iraq, listed the names of 25 of the 26 victims, saying their bodies had been moved from Abu Ghurayb prison to a Baghdad hospital before being secretly buried. The allegations could not be independently confirmed. The statement said Saddam had endorsed death sentences handed down by a court on June 22 for "terrorist acts" that included killing members of the security forces in the Babel, Basra and Qadissiyah Governorates. All those executed were from the mainly Shiite Muslim south, where the statement said "violent confrontations between the people and the regime's agencies" had taken place earlier.