Iraqi Execution Chief: From Hanging With George Clooney to Hanging Bad Guys

By: Greg Mitchell With ?Chemical Ali,? and 14 other Saddam Hussein henchmen, finally going on trial this week in Iraq, Basam Ridha will doubtless soon have more work to do ? as the country?s chief hangman. The former Iraqi exile who appeared on the TV series ?24? and with George Clooney in a Hollywood movie will try not to botch this execution, a recurring problem in Iraq.

He?s gone from hanging with good guy Clooney to hanging bad guys in Iraq.

Ridha, who had a speaking role in Three Kings ? yes, he has a Screen Actors Guild card and still collects residuals-- now acts as an adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. He also appears as a spokesman for the Iraqi government on American TV, and handles all of the arrangements for executions in Iraq. He?s the guy who is frequently quoted when hangings there are botched. When one notorious prisoner?s head got severed in the process back in January, Ridha called it an ?act of God,? adding, in something of an understatement, ?it was not a pretty scene.?

No wonder a recent Los Angeles Times? called him ?the go-to man for all things gallows.?

A little research yields a picture of Ridha posing with Clooney on the set of ?Three Kings? featured in The Daily Reveille, the newspaper for Lousiana State University, on April 23, 2003. The story opens: ?LSU graduate Basam Ridha Al-Husaini had to flee for his life, leaving his family behind and the country he calls home. After the recent fall of Saddam Hussein's regime he will finally be able to return to Iraq after 21 years....In May 1982 two of his brothers had been imprisoned by Hussein, and Al-Husaini decided to leave Iraq and come to the United States.? Eventually he dropped the Al-Husaini part of his name.

Currently, Ridha, is putting his engineering degree to use in carefully planning the likely high-level hanging of ?Chemical Ali.? At least 100 such executions have taken place since 2005.

Ridha denies any blame for the circus surrounding Saddam Hussein?s passing: Surprised by the speed with which it was carried out, he was not in the room that night but far away in Dubai. After another botched execution early this year, he ordered a new gallows built.

Perhaps he could star in a remake of the Sergio Leone/ Clint Eastwood classic, Hang 'Em High.

Last week, he was quoted in U.S. press about the release of innocent Iraqi prisoners. The detainees, some of them foreign Arab nationals, were set free after their cases were studied by the Committee to Review Detainees in Multinational Forces' Prisons, a panel set up by Maliki in May.

"We have released 103 detainees who were held in the prisons run by multinational forces in Iraq," said Ridha, a member of the committee. ?These detainees were found to be innocent."

Ridha had also served as adviser to a previous prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari. USA Today on Feburary 12, 2006, quoted Ridha defending his boss by explaining that he would ?not be able to make an overnight success of Iraq, but he has a vision."