Death Penalty for Three Saddam-Era Spies

Iraq's High Criminal Court sentenced to death three Saddam Hussein-era spies on Thursday. The spies assassinated the father of a sitting Iraqi lawmaker in Beirut in April 1994, Agence France Presse said.

"The court sentences to death Hadi Hassuni, Abdul Hassan al-Majid and Farukh Hijazi, who were agents of the intelligence services," tribunal spokesman Mohammed Abdul Saheb told AFP.

Two other men, military intelligence chief Saber Duri and Saddam's secretary Abdul Hamid Mahmoud, were sentenced to life imprisonment at the conclusion of the trial, which began in October 2009.

Sabawi Ibrahim Hassan, the executed dictator's half-brother, and Saddam's deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz were acquitted in the trial.

The convictions came over the murder of Sheikh Taleb al-Suhail al-Tamimi, head of the Banu Tamim tribe, who fled Iraq for the Lebanese capital with his family after a Baath Party coup in 1968.

He later attempted his own coup against Saddam, who rose to power in 1979, but was killed in Beirut on April 14, 1994.

Tamimi's daughter, Safia al-Suhail, has been an Iraqi MP since 2005.