SADDAM TO BE BURIED SECRETLY, NO MONUMENT: OFFICIAL

Saddam Hussein and two top aides convicted with him will be executed immediately after an appeals court confirms their sentences and could be buried in secret, an Iraqi official said. A senior Iraqi government official said he expected the judicial panel studying the ousted dictator's appeal to confirm death sentences on Saddam, his half brother Barzan al-Tikriti and a former judge, Awad Ahmed al-Bandar. "We are considering the possibility of executing the three, Saddam, Barzan and Bandar at one time on the same day," the official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity because the court is supposed to be independent. "We may bury Saddam at a secret location," he said. "His body may later be handed over to his relatives, as under Muslim rituals we can exhume the body after it is buried. But one thing the government will ensure is that there is no memorial built for Saddam anywhere in Iraq." Saddam was sentenced to death by hanging on November 5 for ordering the execution of 148 Shiites from the village of Dujail after he escaped an assassination bid there in 1982. His half-brother and former intelligence chief Barzan was also sentenced to death, along with Bandar, chairman of the so-called Revolutionary Court which oversaw the Shiites' executions. The Iraqi official said the execution will be carried out soon after the nine-member appeals panel confirms their verdicts delivered by the Iraqi High Tribunal -- the court trying the former regime officials. "We will not waste time. We will look at the security situation and they will be executed immediately at the very first opportunity we get after the appeals chamber finalises the verdicts," he said.