Tehran, 13 Sept.
(AKI) - An unnamed Iraqi judge has told the Iranian
news agency Fars that Saddam Hussein - whose trial
is due to begin in October - is as good as dead.
"The trial of Saddam Hussein will be brief and
immediately afterwards the former dictator will be
hanged by a rope in one of the rooms of the
Mukhaberat (the secret services of the former
regime) where thousands of Iraqis have been tortured
and killed," the anonymous judge is quoted as
saying.
The same judge also said that "all efforts by
foreign countries to prevent the death by hanging of
the former dictator are useless, as the sentence has
already been issued by the Iraqi people." |
Former dictator
Saddam Hussein
Photo : AP
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Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani, told Iraqi
television last week that he had been told by an
investigating judge that Saddam had confessed to
some of his crimes, including executions and
operations in which thousands of Kurds were gassed.
Talabani, who says he opposes the death penalty and
recently transferred his power to authorise death
sentences to his deputy, is also reported to have
said: "There are 100 different reasons for
condemning Saddam to death." A legal consultant to
Saddam's family, Abdel Haq Alani, said news of a
confession came as "a big surprise" to him and urged
that there be a trial in a court of law, not a trial
by media.
On 19 October, the former dictator will also go on
trial for the killing of Shiites in 1982 in the town
of Dujail to the north of Baghdad following an
assassination attempt on him there.
The Iraqi Special Tribunal has decided to try Saddam
separately for different offences, rather than
bringing them all together in one trial. The Dujail
case is the only one referred to trial so far. He
could get the death penalty for that alone if found
guilty.
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