Did al-Sadr Hang Saddam?

There are rumors – as yet unconfirmed – that the reason those black-masked thugs who hanged former U.S. puppet-dictator Saddam Hussein on December 30th were chanting “Moqtada! Moqtada!” was not just because they were members of his Mahdi Army, but because they were cheering one of the hangmen – Sadr himself.

Earlier there had been claims that Sadr was in possession of the noose. Now, Nir Rosen at the blog IraqSlogger, points to Al-Jazeera who has a source claiming the entire execution crew had been replaced by the Mahdi Army and this “pro-Ba’athist” site which claims one of the masked men is Sadr since his mustache “matches.”

The Turkish site Zaman.com adds:

It has been also alleged that Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr was in the room during the execution, and even that a masked al-Sadr hanged the ousted leader. The Saudi daily Al- Mokhtasar claimed that one of the masked men who took Saddam to the room of execution was Moqtada al-Sadr. In the news reported by a witness in the room, he added al-Sadr’s father was killed by Saddam Hussein.

Author: Scott Horton

Scott Horton is editorial director of Antiwar.com, director of the Libertarian Institute, host of Antiwar Radio on Pacifica, 90.7 FM KPFK in Los Angeles, California and podcasts the Scott Horton Show from ScottHorton.org. He’s the author of the 2017 book, Fool’s Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan and editor of The Great Ron Paul: The Scott Horton Show Interviews 2004–2019. He’s conducted more than 5,000 interviews since 2003. Scott lives in Austin, Texas with his wife, investigative reporter Larisa Alexandrovna Horton. He is a fan of, but no relation to the lawyer from Harper’s. Scott’s Twitter, YouTube, Patreon.