Awad Hamad al-Bandar (Arabic: عواد حمد بندر السعدون‎; aka: Awad Hamad Bandar Alsa'doon) (January 2, 1945 - January 15, 2007) was an Iraqi chief judge under Saddam Hussein's presidency. He was the head of the Revolutionary Court which issued death sentences against 143 Dujail residents, in the aftermath of the failed assassination attempt on the president on July 8, 1982 (a year before the U.S. assumed diplomatic ties with Hussein to help thwart their common enemy: Iran). At the Al-Dujail trial the Iraqi Special Tribunal tried al-Bandar for crimes against humanity for issuing the death sentences. On November 5, 2006, al-Bandar was sentenced to death by hanging along with co-defendants Hussein and Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, who was beheaded as a result of the hanging.

He was a member of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party.

The sentence was widely expected to be carried out on December 30, 2006, shortly before 6:00 AM Iraqi local time. Hussein was hanged at 6:05 AM Iraqi local time (0305 UTC). Initially, al-Tikriti and al-Bandar were also believed to have been hanged with him. A few hours later, official statements clarified that the executions of al-Bandar and his remaining co-defendant had been postponed to give special significance to the day that Hussein was executed. The United States claimed that it did not have helicopters available to fly the remaining two to the place of execution; the Iraqi government later said that they did not have time.

Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti (Arabic: صدام حسين عبد المجيد التكريتي Ṣaddām Ḥusayn ʿAbd al-Maǧīd al-Tikrītī; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolutionary Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, and later, the Baghdad-based Ba'ath Party and its regional organisation Ba'ath Party – Iraq Region, which espoused ba'athism, a mix of Arab nationalism and Arab socialism, Saddam played a key role in the 1968 coup, later referred to as the 17 July Revolution, that brought the party to long-term power of Iraq.

As vice president under the ailing General Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, and at a time when many groups were considered capable of overthrowing the government, Saddam created security forces through which he tightly controlled conflict between the government and the armed forces. In the early 1970s, Saddam nationalized oil and other industries. The state-owned banks were put under his control, leaving the system eventually insolvent mostly due to the Iran–Iraq War, the Gulf War, and UN sanctions. Through the 1970s, Saddam cemented his authority over the apparatuses of government as oil money helped Iraq's economy to grow at a rapid pace. Positions of power in the country were filled with Sunnis, a minority that made up only a fifth of the population.

Arwa Damon (born September 19, 1977 in Boston, Massachusetts) is a video correspondent for CNN International and CNN based in Beirut. Damon joined CNN in February 2006. For the three years previous, she covered the Middle East as a freelance producer working with CNN, PBS, Fox News and others. She began her journalism career at CameraPlanet, working to get correspondent Peter Arnett's team into pre-war Iraq.

She has covered many military and civil events during the invasion and occupation of Iraq. These include the United States Army's Battle of Najaf against the Mehdi Army and the battle to retake Samarra in 2004. She has also reported on the United States Marine Corps' offensive against insurgents in Fallujah and Operation Steel Curtain in Husaybah near the Syrian border.

Civil events she covered include the Iraqi elections of January 2005, the constitutional referendum vote in October 2005, and the Iraqi election of December 2005. She also reported on the trial and executions of Saddam Hussein, Barzan Ibrahim Hassan al-Tikriti and Awad Hamed al-Bandar in January 2007.