Saddam aides' bodies head for burial

TIKRIT, Iraq, Jan 15 (Reuters) Saddam Hussein's two aides hanged today will be buried near the former president, local officials in his home city of Tikrit said, but there was confusion over whether the bodies had already arrived there.

Two local reporters said the deputy governor of Salahaddin province, Abdullah Jubara, told them the bodies of Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, Saddam's half-brother, and former judge Awad Hamed al-Bander had already been flown into a US military base at Tikrit.

But he and governor Hamed al-Qaisi later told Reuters that the bodies had not yet left Baghdad. They are expected to be interred in Saddam's nearby native village of Awja.

REUTERS PK RK1916