BAGHDAD: and the former head of Iraq's Revolutionary Court were hanged Monday despite international calls to stay the executions after the bungled hanging of the former dictator.

The pair were hanged at dawn, a top Iraqi government official said on condition of anonymity.

Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, Saddam's half-brother and former intelligence chief, and Awad Ahmed al-Bandar, the former head of the revolutionary court, had been found guilty of crimes against humanity for the killing of 148 Shiites from the village of Dujail in 1980s.

They were sentenced to death on November 5 by a special court along with Saddam, whose execution on December 30 has drawn worldwide criticism for the way it was handled by the Iraqi authorities.

The bodies of Barzan and Bandar have been turned over to police and family members have been asked to retrieve them for burial, a source said.

"The bodies were released to police following the execution. They asked us to come and get them for burial, said a relative of Saddam and Barzan who asked to remain anonymous.

"Before he died, Awad al-Bandar also asked to be buried 'near Saddam Hussein'," the source added.

Concern had been expressed by the United Nations and other international bodies and leaders for the last minute taunting of Saddam, apparently by a Shiite guard, as he stood on the gallows.

The outcry over Saddam's hanging saw the execution of Barzan and Bandar postponed several times amid international calls for the sentences to be stayed.

The White House in its reaction to their hangings Monday said the Iraqi government was bringing 'justice' to those guilty of crimes against the Iraqi people.

"Iraq is a sovereign government exercising its judicial system to bring justice to those convicted for brutal crimes against humanity," White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said.

Stanzel said he did not know whether President George W Bush had been informed of the new hangings in advance as he was in the case of Saddam.

Maliki had said after Saddam's hanging that the government was determined to carry out the execution of his two aides, calling their hangings an 'internal matter' of Iraq.

Maliki had also threatened to break relations with countries who criticised his government for carrying out the executions.

A grisly video of Saddam's hanging made with a portable telephone and posted on the Internet showed a member of the execution party shouting the name of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, a bitter opponent of Saddam.

The two-and-half minute film triggered angry outbursts within Iraq's Sunni Arab community and from international leaders, who felt Saddam had been humiliated as he was being put to death.

Some critics said the execution had amounted to a sectarian lynching.

Authorities have detained the guard who shouted 'Moqtada! Moqtada! Moqtada!' at a sneering Saddam moments before the trapdoor opened and he dropped to his death.

Barzan was one of Saddam's most trusted aides. He managed the strongman's personal fortune until 1995 and is also believed to have coordinated covert purchases in Europe for the regime's prized weapons programmes.

The charges against him dated from when he headed the secret police, from early 1982 to late 1983, at the height of the devastating Iran-Iraq war.

The 60-year-old Bandar was indicted on July 1, 2004, becoming the first judge to be tried for using his court to carry out political executions since Nazi judges were brought before the Nuremberg trials.

He was found guilty of 'committing a deliberate crime against humanity' and sentenced to death.