Saddam aides hanged -Iraqi state TV

BAGHDAD, Jan 15 (Reuters) Saddam Hussein's half-brother and a former judge were hanged at dawn today, 16 days after the ousted Iraqi president was executed, Iraqiya state television said, quoting a source close to the government.

Officials involved in the court process, including a state prosecutor quoted by some media as confirming the executions, denied knowledge or were not available a possible sign the government is trying better to control the flow of information after uproar over illicit video of Saddam's death on December 30.

The Iraqi government spokesman has scheduled a news conference for 10:30 am 1300hrs IST. It was announced yesterday and the subject has not been given.

A lawyer for former judge Awad al-Bander, Badia Aref, told CNN that his client and Saddam's half-brother and former intelligence chief Barzan al-Tikriti had been hanged.

Aref later told Al Arabiya television: ''One hour ago, or even less than one hour ago, the Americans told (his family) to get ready to collect his body ... His son is with me now.'' The chief prosecutor in the case, Jaafar al-Moussawi, told Reuters he was unaware of an execution and was seeking information. By law, one of the prosecution team must be present at hangings. His deputy in the case, Munkith al-Faroon, denied reports that he had confirmed the executions took place.

Controversy over Saddam's hanging has made Iraqi officials reluctant to speak on the record about some elements of it and some have previously made contradictory remarks in public.

The emergence of illicit mobile phone video showing Saddam being taunted by Shi'ite observers at his execution, four days after his appeal failed, angered many in his Sunni Arab minority, embarrassed the Shi'ite-led government and the U.S.

administration and raised sectarian tensions.

Barzan was a feared figure in Iraq at the head of the intelligence service in the 1980s. Bander presided the Revolutionary Court which sentenced 148 Shi'ite men and youths to death after an assassination attempt on Saddam in the town of Dujail in 1982. With Saddam, they were convicted on November 5 of crimes against humanity by the US-sponsored High Tribunal.

REUTERS SY HT1144