Iraq executes four men for cleric's killing

IRAQ HAS executed four men for the murder of a prominent Shia Muslim spiritual leader and his sons in the holy city of Najaf last February.

The killing of Mohammed Sadeq al-Sadr - an influential cleric whose Friday prayer sermons drew large crowds - and his sons Mustafa and Mua'mal sparked widespread riots in the country, according to Iraqi opposition groups.

"The Iraqi Security Directorate announced that it had executed the criminals who killed the late Mohammed Sadeq al-Sadr and his sons," the Iraqi news agency INA reported.

The agency named the executed men as Abdul-Hassan Abbas al-Kufi, Ali Kadhim Jumam, Ahmed Mustafa Hassan Ardabili and Haider Ali Hussein Ardabili. "These criminals had assassinated the martyr, Mohammed Sadeq al-Sadr, and his sons, Mustafa and Mua'mal," it said in a statement.

"These criminals were executed in accordance with a decision issued by a specialised court," it added.

The statement did not say when and where the executions took place. It was reported that three of the men were clerics.

The Iraqi government has insisted that it had nothing to do with the killing of Mr Sadeq al-Sadrbut and his sons but the United Nations human rights investigator, the former Dutch foreign minister Max van der Stoel, has said that he doubts the official version of events.

Iraq, whose Sunni Muslim-dominated government rules a 22 million population which has a 65 per cent Shia majority, says it is the victim of a plot to break its unity.

Last month, Iraq said it had executed eight people charged with murdering prominent Iranian Shia Muslim clerics in southern Iraq in 1996 and 1998.