A purported al Qaeda terrorist was hanged for his role in one of the first major bombings in Iraq — a 2003 blast that killed a Shi'ite leader and 84 others and foreshadowed the four-year insurgency that followed, a Justice Ministry official said yesterday.Oras Mohammed Abdul-Aziz was executed Tuesday in Baghdad after being sentenced to death in October in the killing of Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, the leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the official said. Ministry Undersecretary Busho Ibrahim's statement was the first word that a suspect had been tried in the huge August 2003 car bombing outside the Shrine of Ali in Najaf, one of Shi'ite Islam's holiest sites.
Ayatollah al-Hakim was poised to become a major figure in Iraqi politics following the fall of Saddam Hussein. His brother, Abdulaziz al-Hakim, now heads the group, the largest Shi'ite party in parliament.
Al Qaeda in Iraq claimed responsibility for the attack. Mr. Ibrahim said Abdul-Aziz, from the northern city of Mosul, was affiliated with al Qaeda in Iraq and confessed to other attacks. Included in his confession was the 2004 killing of Abdel-Zahraa Othman, the president of the Governing Council, the U.S.-appointed body that ran Iraq following Saddam's fall.
The al-Hakim slaying took place 10 days after the bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad killed 23 persons, including the top U.N. envoy to Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello — an attack also claimed by al Qaeda in Iraq.