Saddam Hussein's half brother and the former head of Iraq's Revolutionary Court were hanged before dawn Monday, Iraqi prosecutor Munqith al-Faroon said, two weeks and two days after the former Iraqi dictator was executed in a chaotic scene that has drawn worldwide criticism.

Barzan Ibrahim, Saddam's half brother and former intelligence chief, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, head of Iraq's Revolutionary Court, had been found guilty along with Saddam of in the killing of 148 Shiite Muslims after a 1982 assassination attempt on the former leader in the town of Dujail north of Baghdad.

"They [the government] called us before dawn and told us to send someone. I sent a judge to witness the execution and it happened," al-Faroon said.

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Two aides to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki confirmed that the executions had taken place. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the government had not yet released the information.

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh was to hold a news conference later Monday and was expected to announce the hangings.

The executions reportedly occurred in the same Saddam-era military intelligence headquarters building in north Baghdad where the former leader was hanged two days before the end of 2006, according to an Iraqi general, who would not allow use of his name because he was not authorized to release the information. The building is located in the Shiite neighborhood of Kazimiyah.

The two men were to have been hanged along with Saddam on December 30, but Iraqi authorities decided to execute Saddam alone on what National Security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie called a "special day."

Last week, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani urged the government to delay the executions.

"In my opinion we should wait," Talabani said Wednesday at a news conference with U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad. "We should examine the situation," he said without elaborating.

Saddam's execution became an unruly scene that brought worldwide criticism of the Iraqi government. Video of the execution, recorded on a cell phone camera, showed the former dictator being taunted on the gallows.

On Tuesday, al-Maliki said that Khalilzad asked him to delay Saddam's execution for 10 days to two weeks, but added that Iraqi officials rejected the demand.

The Iraqi foreign minister, meanwhile, called on Sunday for the release of five Iranians detained by U.S. forces in what he said was a legitimate diplomatic mission in northern Iraq, but he stressed that foreign intervention to help insurgents would not be tolerated.

The two-pronged statement Sunday by Hoshyar Zebari highlighted the delicate balance facing the Iraqi government as it tries to secure Baghdad with the help of American forces while maintaining ties with its neighbors, including U.S. rivals Iran and Syria.

"Any interventions - or any harmful interventions to kill Iraqis or to provide support for insurgency or for the insurgents should be stopped by the Iraqi government and by the coalition forces," Zebari said in an interview with CNN's "Late Edition."

But he also stressed Iraq has to keep good relations with its neighbors in the region.

"You have to remember, our destiny, as Iraqis, we have to live in this part of the world. And we have to live with Iran, we have to live with Syria and Turkey and other countries," he said. "So in fact, on the other hand, the Iraqi government is committed to cultivate good neighborly relations with these two countries and to engage them constructively in security cooperation."

The U.S. military said the five Iranians detained last week in the Kurdish-controlled northern city of Irbil were connected to an Iranian Revolutionary Guard faction that funds and arms insurgents in Iraq. It was the second U.S. raid targeting Iranians in Iraq in less than a month.

The military said the Quds Force faction of the Revolutionary Guard, a hard-line military force that reports directly to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is "known for providing funds, weapons, improvised explosive device technology and training to extremist groups attempting to destabilize the Government of Iraq and attack Coalition forces."

Al-Quds is the Arabic name for Jerusalem, and a frequent term for political or military factions across the Muslim world.

Iran's government denied the five detainees were involved in financing and arming insurgents and called for their release along with compensation for damages.

"Their job was basically consular, official and in the framework of regulations," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said Sunday. "What the Americans express was incorrect and hyperbole against Iran in order to justify their acts."

In Nicaragua, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the U.S. was trying to hide its failures in Iraq by accusing his nation of funding Iraqi insurgents. Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of his meeting with Nicaragua's president, Ahmadinejad ducked the question of whether his country was in fact arming and supporting insurgents responsible for attacks in Iraq.