Hangman

Lee Gordon talks to Saad Abdul Amir (registration required), resident hangman at Abu Ghraib prison during the time of Saddam Hussein:

"I saw people die in the army, but that was in battle. Being in charge of an execution was completely different. I couldn't sleep for two nights after I was told I must take the job and I haven't had a night of peace since then. I don't know how many executions I took part in, I have lost count, but there were thousands, between 100 and 150 each month."
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During the last decade of Saddam's rule, tens of thousands of his political opponents and common criminals passed through Abu Ghraib to the gallows, where a single yank of the hangman's lever opened trapdoors beneath the feet of two prisoners at a time.

The execution block worked like a well-oiled machine. Twice a week, on Wednesdays and Sundays, men and women personally condemned to death by the dictator were marched 30 yards from their filthy cells to the second floor.

The condemned would often have to spend weeks standing up in the "correction cells" before they were marched past a smiling mural of Saddam and up the ramp to the gallows. "They were tortured for several days," said Saad. "You could scarcely recognise their faces, they were so swollen."