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Saddam may see end of his life for one
massacre only!
5.11.2006
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KUWAIT, November
5,-- World attention shifts to the "green zone" in
the heart of the Iraqi capital Baghdad on Sunday
where the ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and
seven of his henchmen will hear a verdict by the
criminal court on atrocities they had committed
against the Iraqi people.
Observers eye the marathon trial that got underway
on the 19th of October, 2005, with some questions,
as a death sentence against the toppled dictator and
his band would effectively shelve a file full of
other charges concerning atrocities other than Al-Dujail
-- such the bloody Al-Anfal campaign against the
Kurds and the 1991-1990 occupation of Kuwait where
scores of people had been nabbed, tortured and shot
dead in cold blood.
On eve of the historic court session, due shortly
later, the Iraqi Government declared strict security
precautions in and around the capital, imposing a
curfew on pedestrians and motorists and shutting the
airport indefinitely. The extraordinary measure was
declare fearing retaliatory action by followers of
the former leader.
The criminal court of chief judge Rizkar Mohammed
Ameen, who was succeeded by the justice, Raouf Abdel
Rahman, had charged Saddam and seven of his former
advisors, with murdering 148 natives of the village
of Al-Dujail, some 60 kilometers from Baghdad, in
July 1982. The prosecution, on June 19, delivered to
the judiciary a sheet of charges requesting
execution of the accused.
The prosecution attorneys told the court that there
were no evidences supporting Saddam's claims that
his motorcade had been attacked by natives of the
villages, compared to testimonies by several
witnesses who told the court that several Iraqis who
were detained at the time had been subjected to
torture by the regime's personnel, namely Barzan Al-Tikriti,
Saddam's half brother, who was in charge of the
intelligence. |
Chief Judge Raouf Abdel Rahman, headed the panel for
Saddam'
Former dictator Saddam Hussein
Photo : AFP |
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President Jalal Talabani had expressed his approval
of signing a death sentence against Saddam if the
court issues such a verdict and stated that he
"deserves to be executed 20 times per day."
According to the court law, the president has no
power to pardon or soften the verdict that must be
executed in 30 days since its issuance.
A special court that had been formed by the interim
ruling council, on April 20, 2004, had charged
Saddam's and his henchmen with waging the deadly
campaign against the Kurdish community, using
chemical weapons against the Kurdish residents of
Halabja village, Saddam is also on trial separately
on charges of genocide for a military operation
against the country's ethnic Kurds in the late 1980s
that killed more than 182,000 Kurds.
Saddam had adamantly rejected the charges and argued
that the court was illegitimate.
The accused have the right to appeal the verdict,
expected to be issued by the 20-judge court and
voting on the verdict will involve only five judges.
Kuwait, that was a victim of Saddam's aggression,
has assembled many evidences with regard of the
brutal acts his regime practised during the
seven-month occupation of the country. It has
prepared up to 200 files about the atrocities and
human rights abuses.
More than 600 Kuwaitis had been taken as hostages by
the occupation forces. Dead bodies of many of them
were later found in Iraq -- with gunshots in the
skulls -- following the toppling of them regime.
Saddam's regime had repeatedly claimed no knoweldge
about their whereabouts.
The Kuwaiti Public Prosecution had delivered an
official libel suit to the Iraqi judicial
authorities against Saddam and eight of his aides,
in addition to 293 other ranking Iraqis for
committing crimes against humanity and war crimes.
The trial of the dictator is one of the most
paramount events in Iraq since his regime collapsed
on April 9, 2003.
Kuna net.kw
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