Saddam team 'to take
belongings'. He meets with his half brothers as his
execution nears
BAGHDAD, December
29, -- Iraq is nervously awaiting the execution of
Saddam Hussein, amid rumours that the hanging is
imminent and fears it could trigger yet more
violence in the bloodsoaked country.
Saddam's defence counsel fed speculation about the
ousted dictator's trip to the gallows by announcing
that he had been asked to send someone to collect
Saddam's belongings from the US base where he is
being held.
"The Americans called me and asked me to pick up the
personal effects of the president and Barzan al-Tikriti,"
lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi told AFP in Amman,
referring to Saddam's half brother who has also been
sentenced to death.
US military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Chris
Garver said Friday Saddam was under Iraqi legal
authority, but "for security reasons" would not
confirm whether or not he had been physically moved
from a US military detention centre.
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Former dictator Saddam Hussein
Photo : AFP |
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"Legally he was turned over to the Iraqis more than
a year ago," he explained. "At the request of the
Iraqi government we have maintained him at a US
facility for security reasons."
The head of Iraq's interior ministry command centre,
Brigadier General Abdel Karim Khalaf, said the
beleaguered security forces were on high alert ahead
of a hanging expected to exacerbate sky-high
sectarian tensions.
"Certainly, this is a big event, putting into effect
the execution of this serial killer," he said. "We
will take measures proportionate to this event. We
will put all our forces on the streets so that no
lives are jeopardised."
On November 5, when Saddam was convicted of crimes
against humanity and sentenced to death, protests
erupted in some parts of Iraq and authorities
declared a three day curfew to prevent attacks by
Sunni insurgents.
Khalaf said that such a measure could only be
decreed by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, but that
his forces stood ready to act once informed of the
date of the execution, which has yet to be
confirmed.
On December 26, a panel of appeals court judges
confirmed Saddam's sentence and ordered that he and
two former aides be hanged within 30 days.
Iraq's National Security Adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie
refused Friday to put a date on the execution, but
told AFP that the hanging would be announced in
advance and not carried out in secret as some
have speculated.
Maliki's main backer, US President George W. Bush's
White House, thinks the ousted dictator could go to
the gallows as early as Saturday, the first day of
the four day Eid al-Adha holiday, the Muslim "Feast
of Sacrifice".
"It's the government of Iraq's decision," a senior
US official said at the Bush ranch in Texas.
"It's not going to be tonight our time, or
tomorrow their time, it's going to be maybe another
day."
Asked whether the execution could spark violence by
Saddam loyalists, the official said: "They start
violence for any reason they can come up with."
In the almost four years since a US-led liberation
drove Saddam from office, the oil-rich Middle
Eastern nation has been engulfed in a rising tide of
violence between warring political and sectarian
factions.
Iraq's Shiite Arab majority and breakaway Kurds
welcomed Saddam's fall, but many members of the
Sunni Arab minority flocked to the banner of
Islamist or pro-Saddam insurgent groups fighting his
US-backed successors.
The execution, when it comes, can be expected to
further deepen the sectarian divide. Shiite
hardliners hope that it will knock the heart out of
the insurgency, but other observers fear violent
reprisals.
AFP
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