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Iraqi president opposes execution of
Saddam aide Sultan Hashim Ahmad al-Tai
8.9.2007
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September 8, 2007
Sulaimaniyah, Kurdistan region (Iraq), -- The
Iraqi president raised objections Friday to the
planned execution of Saddam Hussein's former defence
minister, who is due to be hanged with two other
former government officials for their roles in a
massacre of Kurds.
President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, said former
defence minister Sultan Hashim Ahmad al-Tai deserved
to be spared because he had been carrying out orders
under threat of death by Saddam and because he had
engaged in unofficial contact with the Kurdish
community under the ousted regime.
Earlier this week, an Iraqi appeals court upheld the
death sentences imposed against al-Tai, along with
Ali Hassan al-Majid, who gained the nickname
"Chemical Ali" after poison gas attacks on Kurdish
towns in the 1980s, and Hussein Rashid Mohammed,
former deputy director of operations for the Iraqi
Armed Forces.
All three were convicted of genocide, war crimes and
crimes against humanity in June for their role in
the brutal crackdown that killed up to 182,000
Kurdish civilians and guerrillas two decades ago
known as "Operation Anfal."
Under Iraqi law, the appeals court decision must be
ratified by Talabani and Iraq's two vice-presidents.
Talabani has said he is opposed to the death
penalty. But he previously deputized Vice-President
Adel Abdul-Mahdi, a Shiite Muslim, to sign execution
orders on his behalf.
The Iraqi president said Friday, however, that he
would not support the decision against al-Tai.
"Personally, I will not support executing Sultan
Hashim," he said at a news conference in
Sulaimaniyah, a city in the autonomous Kurdistan
region about 250 kilometres northeast of Baghdad. |
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani addresses the media
during a press conference in the city of
Sulaimaniyah in Kurdistan region, on Friday Sept. 7,
2007.AP
Former military and army leader Sultan Hashim Ahmad
al-Jabburi al-Tai argues prosecution evidence during
the 'Anfal' genocide trial in Baghdad, 2006. Iraqi
President Jalal Talabani said he would not sign the
execution order of Tai |
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"If the court will carry out its verdicts without
referring them to the presidency council that is
something else," he said. "But if they will refer
them, then we will register reservations these
verdicts."
He said the reservations would include executing
former Iraqi army officers because many of them had
been forced to implement orders by death threats,
although he stressed that did not justify their
crimes against the Iraqi people.
"But a character like Sultan Hashim, with whom we
had contacts during Saddam Hussein's era, is
something else. We were urging him to work against
the government, so how can I now vote for his
execution. I will never ever do that," Talabani
said.
The Iraqi High Tribunal upheld the death sentences
in a majority decision on Tuesday, and appellate
court judge Munir Hadad said the government must
carry out the executions within a 30-day period.
The three were sentenced on June 24 to hang after
they were found responsible for the slaughter of
tens of thousands of Kurds in the Anfal
campaign of 1988.
AP
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