Author Topic: Saddam Hussein sentenced to hang (Read 186 times)

kingwell · « **on:** November 05, 2006, 02:33:12 AM »

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Ousted Iraqi dictator
Saddam Hussein and two of his senior allies have been sentenced to death by hanging after an Iraqi court found them guilty of crimes against humanity. ADVERTISEMENT

Judge Rauf Rasheed Abdel Rahman ordered bailiffs at the Iraqi High Tribunal to force Saddam to stand before the court as, visibly trembling, the former strongman attempted to shout down the verdict Sunday.

"Make him stand," barked Rahman, as Saddam begged the guards: "Don't bend my arms. Don't bend my arms."

Nevertheless, a court official held Saddam's hands behind his back as Rahman, shouting to be heard over the defendant's protests, declared: "The highest penalty should be implemented."

Saddam was sentenced to death for his role in ordering the deaths of 148 Shiite villagers in the village of Dujail, north of Baghdad.

As he was led away, his arms still pinioned, he declared: "Long live
Iraq. Long live the Iraqi people. God is greater than the occupier."

Saddam's half-brother and intelligence chief Barzan al-Tikriti was also sentenced to death, as was Awad Ahmed al-Bandar, who was convicted as the president of the kangaroo court which ordered the Shiites executed.

The former vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan received a life sentence, while three Baath party officials from Dujail received 15 years each and a fourth, more junior figure, was cleared.

Any verdict carrying a death sentence or a sentence of life imprisonment will automatically be subject to review by a panel of appeal judges, who will decide whether or not to allow an eventual retrial.

If the judgement stands, however, Saddam must be executed within 30 days of the appeals panel delivering its verdict, the chief prosecutor has said.

Iraq's beleaguered military was on a war footing for the sentencing and a total curfew was in force in three flashpoint provinces; the war-torn capital Baghdad, the sectarian battlefields of Diyala and Saddam's home region of Salaheddin.

Iraq's current government is far from a neutral observer in the case -- indeed, many experts have accused it of heavy-handed intervention in the case.

"We hope the sentence matches what this man deserves for what he has done against the Iraqi people. The Iraqi people will express happiness in the way they find appropriate," Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said Saturday.

"We call upon the Iraqi people to be calm, to be disciplined and to express themselves in ways that take into consideration the security challenge and the need to protect the lives of citizens," he added.

Saddam and his fellow defendants were accused of ordering the village of Dujail to suffer savage collective punishment after agents of Maliki's Dawa party tried to kill the then Iraqi leader there in 1982.

The community's orchards were ripped up and 148 Shiite civilians were dragged before a Baath Party kangaroo court and sentenced to death.

Such an accusation still carries a potent political charge more than three and a half years after Saddam was driven from power by a US-led invasion, amid ongoing sectarian bloodshed and effective occupation by US forces.

Iraq's Shiite majority seized upon the fall of the Sunni dictator and the old elite to seize power and seek vengeance for crimes such as the destruction of Dujail, while the country has slipped into sectarian war.

Many of the Sunni insurgents fighting the US-backed regime remain loyal to Saddam's memory. Last month, for example, tribal sheikhs paraded outside Kirkuk brandishing portraits of their deposed leader and demanding his restoration.

Such armed groups -- including the Islamic Army of Iraq, which is made up of former Baath Party cadres and veterans of Saddam's armed forces -- have been at the forefront of attacks on US and government forces.

Whether they have reserves of fury yet to unleash may become evident in the aftermath of the verdict.