Iraq has executed a former senior security official from the regime of Saddam Hussein for his role in the 1980 killing of prominent Shiite cleric Mohammed Baqir al-Sadr, authorities said.

In a statement, Iraq’s National Security Service announced that Saadoun Sabri al-Qaisi, a former major general under Saddam Hussein, had been convicted of “grave crimes against humanity.” Al-Qaisi was arrested last year and found guilty of involvement in the killing of al-Sadr, members of the al-Hakim family, and other civilians targeted during the Ba’athist era.

The agency did not specify the date on which the death sentence was carried out.

Mohammed Baqir al-Sadr was one of the most influential religious scholars within Iraq’s Shiite community and emerged in the late 1970s as a vocal critic of the Ba’athist government. His opposition intensified following Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, which heightened fears within Saddam’s regime of a Shiite-led uprising or growing dissent inside Iraq.

In 1980, Iraqi security forces detained al-Sadr and his sister, Bint al-Huda, a respected religious scholar and activist who had publicly condemned state repression. Historical accounts say both were tortured before being executed by hanging on April 8, 1980.

Their deaths provoked widespread anger and later became a lasting symbol of the brutality of Saddam Hussein’s rule, which was marked by severe repression of political and religious opponents and dominated by a Sunni-led power structure despite Iraq’s Shiite majority.

Since the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, successive Iraqi governments have pursued former regime officials accused of crimes against humanity, genocide, and other serious abuses, seeking accountability for atrocities committed decades earlier.