THE WIDOW of the former leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq is to be hanged on Wednesday after a court found her guilty of links to the terrorist mastermind.
Hasna Ali Yehye Hussein was condemned to death despite not being found to have any operational role in a four-year terror campaign directed by her husband, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, who was killed during a joint raid by US and Iraqi forces in April 2010.
Ms Ali, from Yemen, has claimed she had no knowledge of her husband’s deeds. Iraqi authorities have not alleged that she played a role in the sectarian attacks directed by her husband and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, who was killed during last year’s raid.
In an interview shortly after her capture, Ms Ali said she and her husband had led largely separate lives. “I made no choices in my marriage,” she said. “Even when I was with him in the house I was on the first floor and he was living in the cellar. I was not allowed to talk on the telephone or to listen to music or watch TV. There was one TV in the house, but it was in a private room used only by my husband and his group.
“When they told me that he had been involved in killing innocent people, my son was screaming, saying: ‘Mama, mama, listen to what they are saying about him, it’s impossible.’ I will lose my children soon – and for what? What have I done, and what have they done to live their life without a mother? All I want is to take them back to my father in Yemen and forget about Iraq. Yes, I have regrets. Of course I do.”