BAGHDAD, December
26, -- An Iraqi appeals court has upheld the death
sentence imposed on Saddam Hussein at his first
trial, Iraq's national security adviser said today.
"The appeals court approved the verdict to hang
Saddam," Mouwafak al-Rubaie told The Associated
Press.
On Nov. 5, an Iraqi court sentenced Saddam to the
gallows for the 1982 killings of 148 people from a
Shiite Muslim town after an attempt on his life
there.
The appeals court decision must be ratified by
President Jalal Talabani and Iraq's two vice
presidents. Talabani opposes the death penalty but
has in the past deputized a vice president to sign
an execution order on his behalf — a substitute that
was legally accepted.
Once the decision is ratified, Saddam and other
co-defendants sentenced to death at the trial would
be hanged within 30 days.
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Former dictator Saddam Hussein (L) Saddam's half
brother and intelligence chief (R)
Photo : eKurd.net |
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Raed Juhi, a spokesman for the High Tribunal court
that convicted Saddam, said the Iraqi judicial
system would ensure that Saddam is executed even if
Talabani and the two vice presidents do not ratify
the decision.
"We'll implement the verdict by the power of the
law," Juhi said without elaborating.
An official on the High Tribunal court said the
appeals court also upheld death sentences for Barzan
Ibrahim, Saddam's half brother and intelligence
chief during the Dujail killings, and Awad Hamed
al-Bandar, head of Iraq's Revolutionary Court, which
issued the death sentences against the Dujail
residents.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity
for security reasons, said the appeals court
concluded the sentence of life imprisonment given
former vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan was too
lenient and returned his file to the High Tribunal.
Ramadan was convicted of premeditated murder in the
Dujail case.
The official said the appeals court demanded the
death penalty for Ramadan in a letter to the High
Tribunal.
At his trial, Saddam argued that the Dujail
residents who were killed had been found guilty in a
legitimate Iraqi court for trying to assassinate him
in 1982.
The televised was watched throughout Iraq and the
Middle East as much for theater as for substance.
Saddam was ejected from the courtroom repeatedly for
political harangues, and his half brother, Ibrahim,
once showed up in long underwear and sat with his
back to the judges.
The nine-month trial inflamed Iraq's political
divide, however, and three defense lawyers and a
witness were murdered during the course of its 39
sessions.
Saddam is in the midst of a second trial charging
him with genocide and other crimes during a 1987-88
military crackdown on Kurds in northern Iraq. An
estimated 180,000 Kurds died during the operation.
Saddam was found hiding with an unfired pistol in a
hole in the ground near his home village north of
Baghdad in December 2003, eight months after he fled
the capital ahead of advancing American troops.
AP
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