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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Iraq Accused Of Mass Executions Group Claims More Than 800 Killed In Past Two Weeks

Associated Press

Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi government has executed more than 800 prisoners in the last two weeks, an Iraqi opposition group claimed Thursday.

The Iraqi Broadcasting Corp., the information wing of Iraqi dissident groups in exile, claimed the executions were linked to the recent crisis over U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq.

“The death toll is expected to increase as the executions are still continuing,” the group said in a statement faxed to The Associated Press in Cairo.

The executions were ordered by Qusai, the younger son of Saddam and the head of Iraq’s security apparatus, the group said.

The claims could not be independently verified. The Iraqi government tightly controls news and does not comment on claims by dissident groups.

The exiled group, which operates from London and an autonomous Kurdish area in northern Iraq, did not say how it obtained its information. It gave no information on the alleged victims.

The first word on the reported executions came Tuesday when another dissident group based in Iran said 450 detainees had been recently hanged or executed by firing squads.

Thursday’s statement said the executions were carried out by firing squads and electrocutions in the Abu Ghraib and Radwaniyah prisons. It said some bodies have been returned to families with signs of torture.

Qusai, 31, has been viewed as Saddam’s heir apparent since his elder brother, Odai, was seriously wounded in an assassination attempt on Dec. 12, 1996.

On Friday, the government will observe the first anniversary of the assassination attempt in a ceremony in the holy city of an-Najaf in central Iraq.