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Iraqi tribunal sentences Saddam to hang By HAMZA HENDAWI, Associated Press Writer
49 minutes ago
Saddam Hussein was convicted and sentenced Sunday to hang for crimes against humanity in the 1982 killings of 148 people in a single Shiite town, as the ousted leader, trembling and defiant, shouted "God is great!"
As he, his half brother and another senior official in his regime were convicted and sentenced to death by the Iraqi High Tribunal, Saddam yelled out, "Long live the people and death to their enemies. Long live the glorious nation, and death to its enemies!" Later, his lawyer said the former dictator had called on Iraqis to reject sectarian violence and refrain from revenge against U.S. forces.
The trial brought Saddam and his co-defendants before their accusers in what was one of the most highly publicized and heavily reported trials of its kind since the Nuremberg tribunals for members of Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime and its slaughter of 6 million Jews in the World War II Holocaust
"The verdict placed on the heads of the former regime does not represent a verdict for any one person. It is a verdict on a whole dark era that has was unmatched in Iraq's history," said Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq's Shiite prime minister.
Some feared the court decision could exacerbate the sectarian violence that has pushed the country to the brink of civil war, after a trial that stretched over nine months in 39 sessions and ended nearly 3 1/2 months ago. The verdict came two days before midterm elections in the United States widely seen as a referendum on the Bush administration's policy in Iraq. U.S. and Iraqi officials have denied the timing was deliberate.
The White House praised the Iraqi judicial system and denied the U.S. had been "scheming" for the verdict.
Iraqis "are the ones who conducted the trial. The Iraqi judges are the ones who spent all the time pouring over the evidence. ... It's important to give them credit for running their own government," said Tony Snow, the president's spokesman.
In north Baghdad's heavily Sunni Azamiyah district, clashes broke out between police and gunmen. Elsewhere in the capital, celebratory gunfire rang out.
"This government will be responsible for the consequences, with the deaths of hundreds, thousands or even hundreds of thousands, whose blood will be shed," Salih al-Mutlaq, a Sunni political leader, told the Al-Arabiya satellite television station.
Saddam and his seven co-defendants were on trial for a wave of revenge killings carried out in the city of Dujail following a 1982 assassination attempt on the former dictator. Al-Maliki's Islamic Dawa party, then an underground opposition, has claimed responsibility for organizing the attempt on Saddam's life.
In the streets of Dujail, people celebrated and burned pictures of their former tormentor as the verdict was read.
Saddam's chief lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi condemned the trial as a "farce," claiming the verdict was planned. He said defense attorneys would appeal within 30 days.
The death sentences automatically go to a nine-judge appeals panel, which has unlimited time to review the case. If the verdicts and sentences are upheld, the executions must be carried out within 30 days.
A court official told The Associated Press that the appeals process was likely to take three to four weeks once the formal paperwork was submitted.
During Sunday's hearing, Saddam initially refused the chief judge's order to rise; two bailiffs pulled the ousted ruler to his feet and he remained standing through the sentencing, sometimes wagging his finger at the judge.
Before the session began, one of Saddam's lawyers, former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, was ejected from the courtroom after handing the judge a memorandum in which he called the trial a travesty.
Chief Judge Raouf Abdul-Rahman pointed to Clark and said in English, "Get out."
In addition to the former Iraqi dictator and Barzan Ibrahim, his former intelligence chief and half brother, the Iraqi High Tribunal convicted and sentenced Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the head of Iraq's former Revolutionary Court, to death by hanging. Iraq's former Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan was convicted of premeditated murder and sentenced to life in prison.
Three defendants were sentenced to 15 years in prison for torture and premeditated murder. Abdullah Kazim Ruwayyid and his son Mizhar Abdullah Ruwayyid were party officials Dujail, along with Ali Dayih Ali. They were believed responsible for the Dujail arrests.
Mohammed Azawi Ali, a former Dujail Baath Party official, was acquitted for lack of evidence and immediately freed.
He faces additional charges in a separate case over an alleged massacre of Kurdish civilians a trial that will continue while appeals are pending.
The guilty verdict is likely to enrage hard-liners among Saddam's fellow Sunnis, who made up the bulk of the former ruling class. The country's majority Shiites were persecuted under the former leader but now largely control the government.
Al-Dulaimi, Saddam's lawyer, told AP his client called on Iraqis to reject sectarian violence and called on them to refrain from taking revenge on U.S. invaders.
"His message to the Iraqi people was 'pardon and do not take revenge on the invading nations and their people'," al-Dulaimi said, quoting Saddam. "The president also asked his countrymen to 'unify in the face of sectarian strife.'"
In Tikrit, Saddam's hometown, 1,000 people defied the curfew and carried pictures of the city's favorite son through the streets. Some declared the court a product of the U.S. "occupation forces" and condemned the verdict.
"By our souls, by our blood we sacrifice for you Saddam" and "Saddam your name shakes America."
U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad issued a statement saying the verdicts "demonstrate the commitment of the Iraqi people to hold them (Saddam and his co-defendants) accountable."
"Although the Iraqis may face difficult days in the coming weeks, closing the book on Saddam and his regime is an opportunity to unite and build a better future," Khalilzad said.
Two U.S. officials who worked as advisers to the court on matters of international judicial procedures said Saddam's repeated outbursts during the trial may have played a key part in his conviction.
They cited his admission in a March 1 hearing that he had ordered the trial of 148 Shiites who were eventually executed, insisting that doing so was legal because they were suspected in the assassination attempt against him. "Where is the crime? Where is the crime?" he asked, standing before the panel of five judges.
Later in the same session, he argued that he was in charge and he alone must be tried. His outburst came a day after the prosecution presented a presidential decree with a signature they said was Saddam's approval for the Dujail death sentences, their most direct evidence against him.
About 50 of those sentenced by the "Revolutionary Court" died during interrogation before they could go to the gallows. Some of those hanged were children.
"Every time they (defendants) rose and spoke, they provided a lot of incriminating evidence," said one of the U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.
Under Saddam, Iraq's bureaucracy showed a consistent tendency to document orders, policies and minutes of meetings. One document gave the names of everyone from Dujail banished to a desert detention camp in southern Iraq. Another, prepared by an aide to Saddam, gave the president a detailed account of the punitive measures against the people of Dujail.
Saddam's trial had from the outset appeared to reflect the turmoil and violence in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
One of Saddam's lawyers was assassinated the day after the trial's opening session last year. Two more were later assassinated and a fourth fled the country.
In January, chief judge Rizgar Amin, a Kurd, resigned after complaints by Shiite politicians that he had failed to keep control of court proceedings. He, in turn, complained of political interference. Abdul-Rahman, another Kurd, replaced Amin.
Hearings were disrupted by outbursts from Saddam and Ibrahim, with the two raging against what they said was the illegitimacy of the court, their ill treatment in the U.S.-run facility where they are being held and the lack of protection for their lawyers.
The defense lawyers contributed to the chaos in the courtroom by staging several boycotts.
Hanging's too good for him.
Yea, let him off in a Shite village at a prearranged time.
I wonder if things will change once Saddam is gone. I think that the people will begin to see that it will never go back to the same ole same ole once Saddam is dead and gone.
I watched all morning as Iraqis danced in the streets with more happiness than the terrorists on 9/11. Freedom wins again. Now, I'd like to see the libs tell these Iraqis, who are dancing in the streets over Saddam's death sentence, that they were better off under him.
Saddam is actually irrelevant, IMO. Yesterday's news. Hang the bastard and be done.
It's symbolic. No matter how unlikely, Saddam's supporters can always hold up hope that their leader will escape and reclaim his power. He can't do that if he's dead.
The Day of Justice (An Exclusive Dispatch From Baghdad):
PJM in Baghdad
November 5, 2006 4:26 AM
Pajamas Media Baghdad editors Mohammed and Omar Fadhil, of Iraq The Model, write their first impressions after Saddam Husseins death sentence was delivered.
I was overwhelmed with joy and relief as I watched the criminals being read their verdicts. For the first time in our region tyrants are being punished for their crimes through a court of law.
Until this moment and while Im typing these words Im still receiving words of congratulations in emails, phone calls and text messages from friends inside and outside the country. These were our only means to share our happiness because of the curfew that limits our movement.
This is the day for Saddams lovers to weep and I expect their shock and grieve to be huge. They had always thought their master was immortal so let them live in their disappointment while we live for our future.
This is a day not only for Iraqis but a historic day for the whole region; today new basis for dealing between rulers and peoples are found.
No one is above the law anymore.
I was particularly pleased by the way Judge Raouf Rasheed handled the session; he was reading the courts decision and at the same time chastising members of the current government for their misbehavior and threatened to throw them in custody regardless of their ranks!
We are living a new era where theres much hope despite the difficulties our sacrifices have a noble cause, that is to build a new model that obviously terrifies other tyrants.
I believe it wasnt Saddam alone who was shaking and shouting in hysteria when the verdict was read; I can see hysteria takes over all of Saddams followers and apologists.
Today we had turned a page that was full of pain and ugly crimes that were committed by the same criminals who were shaking in the hands of Iraqs new justice.
We were among the first to bring Saddams crimes in Dujail to the surface in this blog almost three years ago even before cases were chosen or a tribunal was formed.
I did that because one of my friends was a direct victim of that crime when he was thrown in prison in the middle of the desert when he was only 7 years old along with his mother and a younger sister and lost 30 members of his extended family over the years of that tragedy.
Some people back then questioned the credibility of my friends story and couldnt believe the crimes of Saddam were that cruel and inhuman. But today that the truth is out there for the whole world to see, the criminals stand small and shaking while the families of the victims stand proud seeing justice served.
Right now volleys of bullets ring not far from where I sit, some are fired to express joy while others are fired in a desperate expression of denial but I have no doubt who is going to prevail. Although the road is long but we are walking forward and will not look back.
I salute the honorable special tribunal that challenged threats and risks and insisted on keeping up the work until the end, and today it brought back the pride of the land that wrote the worlds first laws.
I salute the witnesses who risked their lives to reveal the truth and expose the crimes of the dictator.
I salute the brave men and women of the coalition who came to this land and made this day possible.
Congratulations to all my Iraqi brothers and sisters on this glorious day.
11/5/2006
Saddam sentenced to death
site admin @ 7:47 am
While serving in Iraq in 2004 I asked several Iraqis about Saddams trial and its outcome. Several in this case was seven or eight the subjects I most often discussed with Iraqis were elections, government formation, and families (as in, do you have children?, etc.). But every one of the half-dozen plus Iraqis anecdotally polled on Saddams trial said more or less this: Hell be convicted and killed. One Iraqi (who worked as a translator and was very fluent) added that (and Im paraphrasing) We Iraqis should try him and not the UN. The UN would never reach a conviction. Besides, he committed his crimes against us. By UN I believe the fellow meant the international court in the Hague.
I was at Camp Victory the day Saddam was arraigned. I was walking across the bridge to Al Faw Palace when suddenly a flock of helicopters begin to circle, including a CH-47 Chinook. I wondered if the CENTCOM commander was arriving or a political bigwig. I went on about my business. Turns out the chief visitor was a political has-been, Saddam. He was arraigned then flown back to his prison. (I learned this later in the day from one of the JAG officers.)
Today Saddam was convicted of mass murder and sentenced to death. The tyrant got a fair trial a trial too fair in some respects, given his antics and theatrics. But antics and theatrics (designed to play to sensationalist media) and murder of judges and lawyers (traditional dictator and mob boss methods) were his best ploys, given the evidence he confronted.
The AP (extended excerpt):
Saddam Hussein was convicted and sentenced Sunday to hang for crimes against humanity in the 1982 killings of 148 people in a single Shiite town, as the ousted leader, trembling and defiant, shouted God is great!
As he, his half brother and another senior official in his regime were convicted and sentenced to death by the Iraqi High Tribunal, Saddam yelled out, Long live the people and death to their enemies. Long live the glorious nation, and death to its enemies! Later, his lawyer said the former dictator had called on Iraqis to reject sectarian violence and refrain from revenge against U.S. forces.
The trial brought Saddam and his co-defendants before their accusers in what was one of the most highly publicized and heavily reported trials of its kind since the Nuremberg tribunals for members of Adolf Hitlers Nazi regime and its slaughter of 6 million Jews in the World War II Holocaust
The verdict placed on the heads of the former regime does not represent a verdict for any one person. It is a verdict on a whole dark era that has was unmatched in Iraqs history, Nouri al-Maliki, Iraqs Shiite prime minister, said.
Read the entire AP bulletin.
PM Maliki makes the key point: unmatched in Iraqs history. That can be extended a bit to read unmatched in Mesopotamias history.
Is this a November surprise for the US election? I doubt it, because sensationalist media focus on the immediate moment, not historical context. I bet well hear a few talking heads sob about Saddam as victim and victors vengeance, etc. Well get a personality story spin (ie, Saddam as a single person, a man convicted to death, and capital punishment, is it right?). Well get a western judicial imperalism story spin (even though the Iraqis ran the trial).
But this grand story is about belated justice, a justice once thought impossible to reach by the real victims, the Iraqi people. Its also about the slow, difficult birth of a democratic society in a region caught in the terrible yin-yang of tyrants and terrorists a nation moving from the whim of the Big Man and the fear of terrorist bombs to the rule of law and democratic polity.
I know, the NY Times and John Kerry have told us Iraq is a disaster. No. The US has already gotten about 90 percent of what it needed on September 12, 2001. Theres a democratically elected government in the potentially most powerful (predominantly) Arab Muslim nation, a government trying to learn to crawl under the most trying conditions. Its a government that is learning by doing and learning often by failure. However, as long as the US and coalition remain around to coach, train, and respond to crisis, Iraqi failures will be controlled failures.
Yup. Fostering the development of choice in the Middle East a choice other than tyranny or terror is a tough process.
But will we get that story? I doubt it.
Still, congratulations to the people of Iraq.
And just two days before US mid-term elections. Could the Iraqi courts be trying to influence the outcome of the elections? Or, more likely, they handed down the verdict at a time decided by Chimpy and Co. Not that the sorry sonovabitch doesn't deserve to do a Danny Deever, mind you.
