Iraq hangs militant for 2003 killing of top Shi'ite

BAGHDAD, July 6 (Reuters) Iraq has executed an alleged al Qaeda militant found guilty of taking part in the 2003 killing of a top Shi'ite cleric, who also confessed to helping slay 19 Italians, an Iraqi justice official said today.

Oras Abdul-Aziz Mahmood was hanged on Tuesday for his part in the April 2003 car bombing that killed Shi'ite leader Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim and 82 others at Najaf's Imam Ali mosque, said Justice Ministry Under Secretary Busho Ibrahim.

''Last Tuesday, Oras was executed following the guilty verdict for the killing of ... Hakim,'' Ibrahim said.

Hakim was the leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, now one of the largest Shi'ite groups in the Iraqi parliament and headed by his brother, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim.

Hakim's assassination was claimed by Islamist militants al Qaeda. It was an early act in a campaign of bloody bombings that has since killed thousands, stoking sectarian hatred between minority Sunni and majority Shi'ite Arabs that has pushed Iraq to the brink of civil war.

Ibrahim said Mahmood, who also went by the name Abu Omar al-Kurdi, had also admitted involvement in a 2003 attack on Italian forces in Nassiriya.

A suicide bomber killed 19 Italians, including 17 soldiers and two civilians, in a November 2003 attack on a military police barracks that inflicted Italy's worst military loss since World War Two.

Mahmood also admitted to involvement in the May 2004 killing of Abdel Zahara Othman, head of the governing council, claimed by al Qaeda at the time, Ibrahim said.

Mahmood, from Mosul in northern Iraq, was detained by US forces in 2005, found guilty and sentenced in October 2006. He was handed over to Iraqi authorities last month, Ibrahim said.

REUTERS GT VV1834