by Jay Deshmukh
BAGHDAD, March 18, 2007 (AFP) - Iraq's new judiciary, four years on from the US-led invasion, is dismantling piece by piece the remnants of the ruthless regime enforced by Saddam Hussein over a quarter of a century.
The executed president's inner circle of family members and many of his cronies -- mostly Sunni Arabs from the Tikrit region of northern Iraq -- have been hunted down and are being sent to the gallows one by one.
An appeals court on Thursday upheld a death sentence on former vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan, like Saddam convicted for crimes against humanity and who is now likely to be hanged within the next two weeks.
Even ordinary Iraqis who despised Saddam were surprised by the sudden December 30 hanging of the man who ruled Iraq with an iron fist -- although thousands took to the streets to noisily celebrate his downfall.
Film footage of Saddam being taunted then executed was circulated on the Internet, to the delight of many Shiite Iraqis who suffered under his regime, but was widely seen internationally as a public relations blunder.
The masked executioners and their sectarian chants were seen as undermining the legitimacy of the process -- but this did not unnerve the Iraqi government.
Calling Saddam's execution a "gift to Iraq", Bassem Ridha, advisor to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said Iraq was determined to hunt other followers of Saddam.
"Definitely this was historic for us. Nobody believed Saddam would be executed. Now that it is done, it has given us a boost, courage despite the mistakes we made," he told AFP.
Barzan Ibrahim Hassan al-Tikriti, a half-brother and former chief of the dreaded Mukhabarat intelligence service, followed Saddam to the gallows on January 15. His head was ripped from his body by the rope.
Uday and Qusay, Saddam's two sons who were pillars of the regime, were killed in a fierce gunbattle with US troops backed by air power in the northern city of Mosul in July 2003.
All four have been buried in their home village of Awjah near Tikrit, along with Awad Ahmed al-Bandar, the executed chief judge of Saddam's disbanded Revolutionary Court.
Among the defendants in the Kurdish genocide trial is Ali Hassan al-Majid, also known as "Chemical Ali" and a cousin of Saddam's who served as his enforcer against Iraq's now dominant Shiites and Kurds.
A defiant Majid has been appearing in court with a copy of the Koran holy book in one hand, like Saddam had carried almost up to the gallows, and sits in the same front row seat that had been used by Iraq's fallen leader.
Only fugitive Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, who has a 10-million-dollar bounty on his head, has escaped capture among those closest to Saddam's seat of power, amid frequent unconfirmed reports of his death.
He was Saddam's number two in the decision-making Revolutionary Command Council, having stood by his side ever since the 1968 coup that brought their Baath party to power.
It was in 1979 that Saddam, who would have turned 70 next April 28, took over as president.
Former deputy prime minister Tareq Aziz, seen as his master's voice who represented the acceptable face of Saddam's Iraq on the international scene, appeared in court earlier this month to heap praise on the executed dictator.
"I had the honour to work with the former regime and with the hero Saddam Hussein," Aziz said from the witness stand in the Anfal genocide trial. "He is the hero behind the unity of Iraq and its sovereignty."
Aziz, who surrendered to US troops in Iraq in April 2003 since when he has been held near Baghdad international airport but without being formally charged, denied there had been any mass killings under Saddam.
The wife, Sajida Khairallah Tulfah Hussein, and eldest daughter, Raghad, among the women and children in Saddam's family who fled abroad before the US occupation, remain among those on a US wanted list.
Iraq's Shiite led government is determined to continue chasing Saddam's remaining aides.
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