BAGHDAD - The special court charged with trying Saddam Hussein and members of his regime released a videotape on Wednesday of the questioning of the ousted leader's half-brother Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan. Sabawi was captured in late February and believed to have played a pivotal role in financing the insurgency which rages on more than two years after the regime's fall. The interrogation was carried out on Monday, according to the tape obtained by AFP along with a statement from the Iraqi Special Tribunal. The statement said Sabawi and Mizban Khodr Hadi, another senior former regime member, were questioned about the "crimes committed against the Failis, including execution, deportation and imprisonment in the 1980s".It said Hadi and Walid Hamid Tawfiq, another senior figure, were questioned separately also on Monday about "crimes committed during the events of 1991, in the presence of the investigating judges and the prosecutor general".
The tribunal, set up under the previous US-led occupation authority, released Monday footage of Saddam being questioned about the 1982 killing of 143 villagers in Dujail, northeast of Baghdad. The release of that tape, which was also played without the sound, triggered much criticism from his defense team and legal experts in Iraq. The tribunal also released separate footage showing four senior members of the regime being questioned about the repression of the Kurds in the 1980s and the Shiites at the end of the Gulf War over Kuwait in 1991. Apart from the alleged crimes committed by Saddam's henchmen against the Kurds, who are mostly Sunnis, his regime is accused of persecuting the Failis, who are Shiite Kurds, because of their suspected ties to Iran.