Iraq has not finalised the execution date of Awad Ahmed al-Bandar, seen here in March 2006, a henchmen of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein who was hanged eight days ago in Baghdad. Jordanian attorney Issam Ghazzawi has said the time on death row is "more terrifying" than the execution itself. [AFP]

Amman - The death row wait of two of Saddam Hussein's top aides who were due to hang with the ousted Iraqi president last month is "more terrifying" than the execution itself, their lawyer has said.

Saddam's half-brother and intelligence chief Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti and revolutionary court chief Awad Ahmed al-Bandar "were told by the Americans they would be executed the same day as Saddam", Jordanian attorney Issam Ghazzawi said Sunday.

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"On Saturday (December 30), the Americans went to see Barzan al-Tikriti and Awad al-Bandar in their cells. It was after 1 am and they woke them up to inform them they will be executed," said Ghazzawi.

"They took them from their cells to a building about 150 metres (yards) away and asked them to write their last will and testament," said Ghazzawi, who met separately with the pair in Baghdad Wednesday.

But according to the lawyer, Barzan and Bandar were left on tenterhooks until 8:30 am and later "the Americans returned and told them the execution had been posptoned and returned the pair to their cells.

"This sort of wait is frightening and more terrifying than the execution itself. Had it happened in any other country the execution would have been scrapped," said Ghazzawi.

The execution of the pair was originally fixed for Thursday but was postponed in the face of rising international pressure after the bungling of Saddam's hanging on December 30.

In a statement Saturday, UN chief Ban Ki-moon "strongly urged the government of Iraq to grant a stay of execution to those whose death sentences may be carried out in the near future."

Barzan and Bandar both wept over Saddam's death, and Bandar said he wished he had been executed along with the ousted president, the lawyer said.

Ghazzawi also met separately on Wednesday with ousted Iraqi vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan and deputy prime minister Tareq Aziz, both of whom are in the custody of the US-led coalition in Iraq.

"Tareq Aziz told me that by executing Saddam 'they have killed Iraq, not Saddam Hussein,'" the lawyer said.

Shiite MP Sami al-Askari, who witnessed the hanging of Saddam, told AFP in Baghdad on Sunday that no date had been set for the execution of Barzan and Bandar.

"The date for their execution is not yet fixed. Anyway we have time till January 25," Askari said, referring to the 30-day period stipulated by Iraqi law for executions to be carried out once a death sentence has been confirmed.

In November, an Iraqi court found Saddam, Barzan and Bandar guilty of crimes against humanity for the killing of 148 Shiite civilians in the 1980s.