Iraq’s National Security Agency said Friday it arrested a former high-level security official for his involvement in the 1980 execution of a prominent Shiite cleric and his sister during Saddam Hussein‘s brutal crackdown on religious opposition.
Mohammad Baqir al-Sadr was a leading Iraqi Shiite cleric and political critic who opposed the secular Ba’athist government of the former Iraqi president.
His opposition intensified following the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, which heightened Saddam’s fears of a Shiite-led uprising in Iraq.