To be hanged until death

BAGHDAD:  Ousted Iraqi
dictator Saddam Hussein will be hanged within 30 days, an appeal court
judge said yesterday, after confirming the former strongman's sentence
for crimes against humanity. Speaking in front of reporters in Baghdad,
Judge Arif Shaheen said the verdict was final and legally binding on
Iraq's government, which now has a month to get Saddam and two
co-defendants to the gallows. "It cannot exceed 30 days. As from
tomorrow the sentence could be carried out at any time," the judge
said, after confirming that the sentences had been upheld and that the
trial process was complete and without appeal. "The appeals court has
issued its verdict. What we have decided today is compulsory," he said.
The White House called the court's decision a "milestone" in replacing
tyranny with rule of law.
Officials from Prime Minister Nouri
Al-Maliki's government have previously said they will not hesitate to
carry out the sentence, and that he and his fellow convicts will be
hanged within days or weeks of the decision. Saddam and six
co-defendants were convicted on November 5 of crimes relating to the
killing of 148 Shiites whose village, Dujail, was subjected to a
collective punishment after a failed 1982 attempt on the dictator's
life. Shaheen confirmed death sentences on Saddam, his half-brother
Barzan Al-Tikriti and former revolutionary court judge Awad Ahmed
Al-Bandar, as well as long jail terms on three more defendants.
He
also said that Iraqi law stipulated that the sentences by carried out
regardless of other ongoing legal proceedings, including Saddam's trial
for genocide against the Kurdish population of northern Iraq. Shaheen
also said the appeals court had deemed the life sentence handed down to
Saddam's former vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan too lenient, with
trial judges asked to reconsider the "light" sentence, opening the
possibility that he too could go to the gallows. Iraq's head of state,
President Jalal Talabani, must ratify all capital sentences, but he has
previously said he would leave such a job to his vice presidents
because of his personal opposition to the death penalty.
A spokesman
for the Iraqi High Tribunal, Judge Raed Al-Juhi, told AFP that under
Iraq's constitution cases of international jurisdiction, such as crimes
against humanity, cannot be overturned by a presidential pardon. The
former strongman's conviction inspired conflicting emotions in Iraq, a
country that has been shattered by violence between warring political
and religious factions since his fall from power. Members of the
country's Shiite majority braved a strict curfew to celebrate the
judgement with rowdy street parties, but some members of the once
dominant Sunni community held protests and demanded Saddam's release.
Saddam's
chief defence lawyer said he was not surprised by the appeal court
verdict, slamming the trial from start to finish as politically
motivated. "We were not at all surprised, as we are convinced that that
this has been - 100 per cent - a political trial," Khalil Al-Dulaimi
told AFP in Amman. "Every criminal should get what he deserves, whether
he is Saddam or anybody else, but with a fair trial. They turned the
Saddam trial into a show," said Salim Al-Jibouri, an official of the
Islamic Party, the largest Sunni Arab party in parliament.
In
Washington, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the US-backed Iraqi
judicial system "has followed its rules and processes and come up with
its conclusion". White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said Saddam had
"received due process and legal rights that he denied the Iraqi people
for so long". "Today marks an important milestone in the Iraqi people's
efforts to replace the rule of a tyrant with the rule of law," he told
reporters.
Human rights group Amnesty International said the appeal
court ruling came after a trial that lacked independence from political
interference. "Amnesty International is very disappointed about this
decision," a spokeswoman said. "We are against the death penalty as a
matter of principle but particularly in this case because it comes
after a flawed trial." Human Rights Watch, a New York-based group, also
objected. "Imposing the death penalty, indefensible in any case, is
especially wrong after such unfair proceedings," said Richard Dicker,
director of the International Justice programme at Human Rights Watch.
"That a judicial decision was first announced by Iraq's national
security adviser (Mowaffaq Al-Rubaie) underlines the political
interference that marred Saddam Hussein's trial."..........Read More