(Updates with quotes) BAGHDAD, Dec 26 (Reuters) - An Iraqi appeals court on Tuesday upheld a ruling that Saddam Hussein should hang for crimes against humanity and said the sentence should be carried out in the next 30 days. "Our role has ended here. Now it is up to the executive authority to carry out the sentence," the head of the Iraqi High Tribunal, Aref Abdul-Razzaq al-Shahin, told a news conference in Baghdad. "As far as we are concerned this is what the law says so the executive authority has an obligation to carry out the ruling within 30 days," he added. The nine-judge appelate court also upheld death sentences for Saddam's half-brother, Barzan al-Tikriti, and former judge Awad al-Bander, who were also sentenced on Nov. 5 with Saddam to death for crimes against humanity over the killings of 148 Shi'ites in the 1980s. All should be carried out within 30 days, al-Shahin said. The appeals court recommended tightening the sentence for former Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan, who had been sentenced to life in prison, saying he should also be executed. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a member of the Shi'ite majority persecuted under Saddam's Sunni-minority rule, has said he wants the execution to be carried out before the end of the year, drawing criticism from human rights groups for appearing to prejudge the court. U.N. human rights experts have called on Iraq's government not to carry out the death sentence, saying Saddam's trial was seriously flawed. Saddam is facing charges of genocide against ethnic Kurds in a military campaign in Kurdistan in the 1980s. If Saddam is executed then the charges against him in that case will be dropped, but the trial against his six co-defendants will continue.
