ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – Iraq's National Security Service (INSS) on Monday announced the execution of a former officer under Saddam Hussein's regime, after he was convicted of involvement in the killing of the late prominent Shiite cleric Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, among several other crimes.

Saadon Sabri al-Qaisi, a Major General under Hussein's dictatorship in Iraq, was convicted of "committing grave crimes against humanity, including the assassination of Sayyid Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, several scholars from the al-Hakim family, and innocent civilians," according to the Iraqi security agency. 

INSS said that he was executed by hanging after the completion of legal procedures, without disclosing when he was executed. 

The prominent cleric, an outspoken critic of Hussein's rule, was arrested along with his sister in 1980, a year after a Shiite Islamic revolution led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini saw the Shah of Iran dethroned and the Pahlavi dynasty's end in 1979. Sadr was executed later in the same year he was arrested.

Sadr's death has remained a symbol of resistance and the oppression the country's majority Shiite component was subjected to under Hussein's iron-fisted rule.

The late Shiite cleric is also considered the ideological founder of the Islamic Dawa Party, which is now led by Nouri al-Maliki. He is also father-in-law to Muqtada al-Sadr, leader of the Sadrist movement, which maintains a strong supporter base in Iraq.