Posted by By Emma Emeozor with Agency Reports on
Deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has been sentenced to death by hanging. The High Tribunal trying the former leader for the massacre of 148 people in the Shiite town of Dujail in 1982 handed the verdict down on Sunday.
Deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has been sentenced to death by hanging. The High Tribunal trying the former leader for the massacre of 148 people in the Shiite town of Dujail in 1982 handed the verdict down on Sunday.
The judgments came almost three years after United States-led forces captured Saddam from his hide-out. Also sentenced to death including Saddam's half- brother Barzan al-Tikrit and Iraq's former chief judge of the Revolutionary Court, Awad Hamed al-Bander. A former vice president of Iraq, Taha Yassin Ramadan bagged life sentence in prison while three others - Abdullah Kadhem Ruwaid, Ali Dayem Ali and Misher Abdullah Ruwaid were sentenced to 15 years each.
The death sentence will not be executed immediately. Rather, the case will be automatically appealed to the Appellate Chamber of the Iraqi High Tribunal. The defence has 30 days to file any motions. Reports quoted a court official as saying the appeal process was likely to take three to four weeks once the formal paperwork was submitted. However, there is no limit to how long the appeals process can take. If the Appellate Chamber upholds the conviction and sentence, Saddam must be executed within 30 days.
The session lasted for 50-minutes. Saddam dressed in dark suit and white shirt had entered with a Quran in hand. The session kicked off with drama as in the past. Saddam rejected Judge Rauf Abdel Rahman's order to stand while he read out the verdict and sentence. And when the judge began reading the verdict and sentence, a shocked Saddam began shouting 'Allahu Akhbar" (God is great.) Saddam engaged the judge in argument and shouted, 'Damn you and your court." The judge ordered Saddam taken away. That order did not stop the embattled former Iraqi strongman from violent reaction as he shouted, 'Don't push me boy." And again repeated the shout of 'Allahu Akhbar."
Before the sentencing session began, defence attorney and former U.S. Attorney-General Ramsey Clark who was in court, was ordered out by the judge for contempt of court. Clark was accused of insulting the court and the Iraqi people after he handed the judge a note in which he called the trial a 'travesty". Another defence attorney, Ziad al-Najdawi angrily left the courtroom. al-Najdawi mocked the court process when he said, 'That's the American justice." Saddam's defence team has accused the Iraqi Government of interfering in the proceedings. U.S Human Rights Watch is in support of that claim.
The trial christianed 'The Dujail trial," began on October 19, 2005 and ended on July 27, 2006. It is the first in a series of proceedings against Saddam. Saddam is also facing another trial involving the 1988 Anfal campaign, the government offensive in the Kurdish region. He is charged with genocide.
Before Sunday's verdicts were announced, a curfew was imposed in the Iraqi capital Baghdad and two provinces - Diyala and Salaheddin including Saddam's hometown of Tikrit. These provinces have large Sunni population. Predominantly Shiite and Kurdish provinces were not under curfew.
However, about 2,000 protesters from Tikrit defied the curfew and demonstrated in support of Saddam just as people in the Shiite province of Sadr city and Najaf trooped out into the streets jubilating. While in Tikrit, demonstrators carried the posters of Saddam and were shooting into the air. In Sadr city, and other Shiite cities, jubilating groups carried the posters of Muqtada al Saadr's grandfather, a cleric who was murdered by Saddam in 1980s. They shot their guns in the air in celebration. They shouted ‘the killer deserves to be killed" and set Saddam's pictures on fire.
Iraqi Government officials including President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Nouri Maliki have given nod to the verdict. Talabani said, ' I think the trial is fair. Those people had the full right to say what they intended. I must respect the independence of the Iraqi judiciary. Until the end I must be silent…because my comments could affect the situation." In his reaction, Maliki said, 'The justice handed out to him is a response to the call from thousands of sons and sisters of those sentenced and executed by Saddam…Maybe this will help alleviate the pain of the widows and the orphans and those who have been ordered to bury their loved ones in secrecy, and those who have been forced to suppress their feelings and suffering, and those who have paid at the hands of tortures, and those who have been deprived of the basic human rights, like education and profession."
In a statement issued immediately after the judgments were delivered, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad said, 'a former dictator feared by millions, who killed his own citizens without mercy or justice, who waged wars against neighbouring countries, has been brought to trial in his own country …held accountable in a court of law with ordinary citizens bearing witness."
British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said Saddam and the other defendants have 'faced justice and have been held accountable for their crimes. Appalling crimes were committed by Saddam Hussein's regime. It is right that those accused of such crimes against Iraqi people should face Iraqi justice."
Iran Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammed Ali Hosseini while welcoming the death sentence, said 'Even if Saddam and his accomplices are the agents who carried out these crimes, we cannot forget the Western protectors of Saddam who by supporting him prepared the ground for the execution of his crimes."
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero had this to say, 'Saddam Hussein, like any other citizen or political leader, has to answer for his actions, for what he has done in his government task. It is well known that for a long time the EU has not been in favour of the death penalty. Obviously it is a penalty which is not provided for in any legal system in the EU or, of course, in our country."
The chairman of Foreign Affairs Committee of the Russian Duma, Konstantin Kosachev reacted differently when he said, 'Today's ruling was quite predictable, and given the attitudes to Saddam Hussein's regime that exist both in and beyond Iraqi society. The punishment was deliberately chosen to be the harshest. It is another matter that the death sentence will clearly split Iraqi society still further.
On the other hand, I think that the death sentence on Saddam Hussein is unlikely to be carried out. It will be stopped one way or another, either at the level of the Iraqi president or by other means. This is more of a moral ruling, revenge that modern Iraq is taking on the Saddam Hussein regime."