Deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was convicted and sentenced on Sunday to hang for crimes against humanity in the 1982 killings of 148 people in a single town, as the ousted leader, trembling and defiant, shouted “God is great!” As he, his half-brother and another senior official in his regime were convicted and sentenced to death, Saddam yelled out: “Long live the people and death to their enemies. Long live the glorious nation, and death to its enemies!” The trial brought Saddam and his co-defendants before their accusers in what was one of the most highly publicised and heavily reported trials of its kind since the Nuremberg tribunals for members of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime and its slaughter of six million Jews in the World War II Holocaust. Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq’s Shia Prime Minister, declared the verdicts as history’s judgement on a whole era. “The verdict placed on the heads of the former regime does not represent a verdict for any one person. It is a verdict on a whole dark era that was unmatched in Iraq’s history,” Mr Al-Maliki said after the session.
Some feared the verdicts could intensify Iraq’s sectarian violence after a trial that stretched over nine months in 39 sessions and ended nearly three months ago. Clashes immediately broke out on Sunday in north Baghdad’s heavily Sunni Azamiyah district. Elsewhere in the capital, celebratory gunfire rang out. “This government will be responsible for the consequences, with the deaths of hundreds, thousands or even hundreds of thousands, whose blood will be shed,” Salih al-Mutlaq, a Sunni political leader, told the Al-Arabiya satellite TV station. Saddam and his seven co-defendants were on trial for a wave of revenge killings carried out in the city of Dujail following a 1982 assassination attempt on the former dictator. Mr Al-Maliki’s
Islamic Dawa party, then an underground opposition, has claimed responsibility for organising the attempt on Saddam’s life.
In the streets of Dujail, a Tigris River city of 84,000, people celebrated and burned pictures of their former tormentor as the verdict was read.
The death sentences automatically go to a nine-judge appeals panel, which has unlimited time to review the case. If the verdicts and sentences are upheld, the executions must be carried out within 30 days. A court official told AP that the appeals process was likely to take three to four weeks once the formal paperwork was submitted.
During Sunday’s hearing, Saddam initially refused the chief judge’s order to rise; two bailiffs pulled the ousted ruler to his feet and he remained standing through the sentencing, sometimes wagging his finger at the judge.
Before the session began, one of Saddam’s lawyers, former US attorney-general Ramsey Clark, was ejected from the courtroom after handing the judge a memorandum in which he called the trial a travesty.
Chief judge Raouf AbdulRahman pointed to Mr Clark and said in English: “Get out.” In addition to the former Iraqi dictator and Barzan Ibrahim, his former intelligence chief and half brother, the Iraqi high tribunal convicted and sentenced Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the head of Iraq’s former revolutionary court, to death by hanging. Iraq’s former vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan was convicted of premeditated murder and sentenced to life in prison.
Three defendants were sentenced to 15 years in prison for torture and premeditated murder. Abdullah Kazim Ruwayyid and his son Mizhar Abdullah Ruwayyid were party officials Dujail, along with Ali Dayih Ali. They were believed responsible for the Dujail arrests. Mohammed Azawi Ali, a former Dujail Ba’ath Party official, was acquitted for lack of evi dence and immediately freed. He faces additional charges in a separate case over an alleged massacre of Kurdish civilians.
The guilty verdict for Saddam is expected to enrage hardliners among Saddam’s fellow Sunnis, who made up the bulk of the former ruling class.
The country’s majority Shias, who were persecuted under the former dictator but now largely control the government, will likely view the outcome as a cause of celebration.
Saddam’s chief lawyer Khalil al-Dulaim told AP his client called on Iraqis to reject sectarian violence and called on them to refrain from taking revenge on US invaders. “His message to the Iraqi people was ‘pardon and do not take revenge on the invading nations and their people’,” Mr Al-Dulaimi said, quoting Saddam. “The President also asked his countrymen to ‘unify in the face of sectarian strife.’” In Tikrit, Saddam’s hometown, 1,000 people defied the curfew and carried pictures of the city’s favourite son through the streets. Some declared the court a product of the US “occupation forces” and condemned the verdict.
US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad issued a statement saying the verdicts “demonstrate the commitment of the Iraqi people to hold them (Saddam and his co-defendants) accountable.” “Although the Iraqis may face difficult days in the coming weeks, closing the book on Saddam and his regime is an opportunity to unite and build a better future,” Mr Khalilzad said. US officials associated with the tribunal said Saddam’s repeated courtroom outbursts during the ninemonth trial may have played a key part in his conviction.
They cited his admission in a March 1 hearing that he had ordered the trial of 148 Shias who were eventually executed, insisting that doing so was legal because they were suspected in the assassination attempt against him. “Where is the crime?
Where is the crime?” he asked, standing before the panel of five judges. Later in the same session, he argued that his co-defendants must be released and that because he was in charge, he alone must be tried. His outburst came a day after the prosecution presented a presidential decree with a signature they said was Saddam’s approval for death sentences for the 148 Shias, their most direct evidence against him.
“Every time they (defendants) rose and spoke, they provided a lot of incriminating evidence,” said one of the US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. Under Saddam, Iraq’s bureaucracy showed a consistent tendency to document orders, policies and minutes of meetings. That, according to the US officials, helped the prosecution produce more than 30 documents that clearly established the chain of command under Saddam.
One document gave the names of everyone from Dujail banished to a desert detention camp in southern Iraq.
Another, prepared by an aide to Saddam, gave the President a detailed account of the punitive measures against the people of Dujail following the failed assassi nation attempt.
Islamic Dawa party, then an underground opposition, has claimed responsibility for organising the attempt on Saddam’s life.
In the streets of Dujail, a Tigris River city of 84,000, people celebrated and burned pictures of their former tormentor as the verdict was read.
The death sentences automatically go to a nine-judge appeals panel, which has unlimited time to review the case. If the verdicts and sentences are upheld, the executions must be carried out within 30 days. A court official told AP that the appeals process was likely to take three to four weeks once the formal paperwork was submitted.
During Sunday’s hearing, Saddam initially refused the chief judge’s order to rise; two bailiffs pulled the ousted ruler to his feet and he remained standing through the sentencing, sometimes wagging his finger at the judge.
Before the session began, one of Saddam’s lawyers, former US attorney-general Ramsey Clark, was ejected from the courtroom after handing the judge a memorandum in which he called the trial a travesty.
Chief judge Raouf AbdulRahman pointed to Mr Clark and said in English: “Get out.” In addition to the former Iraqi dictator and Barzan Ibrahim, his former intelligence chief and half brother, the Iraqi high tribunal convicted and sentenced Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the head of Iraq’s former revolutionary court, to death by hanging. Iraq’s former vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan was convicted of premeditated murder and sentenced to life in prison.
Three defendants were sentenced to 15 years in prison for torture and premeditated murder. Abdullah Kazim Ruwayyid and his son Mizhar Abdullah Ruwayyid were party officials Dujail, along with Ali Dayih Ali. They were believed responsible for the Dujail arrests. Mohammed Azawi Ali, a former Dujail Ba’ath Party official, was acquitted for lack of evi dence and immediately freed. He faces additional charges in a separate case over an alleged massacre of Kurdish civilians.
The guilty verdict for Saddam is expected to enrage hardliners among Saddam’s fellow Sunnis, who made up the bulk of the former ruling class.
The country’s majority Shias, who were persecuted under the former dictator but now largely control the government, will likely view the outcome as a cause of celebration.
Saddam’s chief lawyer Khalil al-Dulaim told AP his client called on Iraqis to reject sectarian violence and called on them to refrain from taking revenge on US invaders. “His message to the Iraqi people was ‘pardon and do not take revenge on the invading nations and their people’,” Mr Al-Dulaimi said, quoting Saddam. “The President also asked his countrymen to ‘unify in the face of sectarian strife.’” In Tikrit, Saddam’s hometown, 1,000 people defied the curfew and carried pictures of the city’s favourite son through the streets. Some declared the court a product of the US “occupation forces” and condemned the verdict.
US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad issued a statement saying the verdicts “demonstrate the commitment of the Iraqi people to hold them (Saddam and his co-defendants) accountable.” “Although the Iraqis may face difficult days in the coming weeks, closing the book on Saddam and his regime is an opportunity to unite and build a better future,” Mr Khalilzad said. US officials associated with the tribunal said Saddam’s repeated courtroom outbursts during the ninemonth trial may have played a key part in his conviction.
They cited his admission in a March 1 hearing that he had ordered the trial of 148 Shias who were eventually executed, insisting that doing so was legal because they were suspected in the assassination attempt against him. “Where is the crime?
Where is the crime?” he asked, standing before the panel of five judges. Later in the same session, he argued that his co-defendants must be released and that because he was in charge, he alone must be tried. His outburst came a day after the prosecution presented a presidential decree with a signature they said was Saddam’s approval for death sentences for the 148 Shias, their most direct evidence against him.
“Every time they (defendants) rose and spoke, they provided a lot of incriminating evidence,” said one of the US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. Under Saddam, Iraq’s bureaucracy showed a consistent tendency to document orders, policies and minutes of meetings. That, according to the US officials, helped the prosecution produce more than 30 documents that clearly established the chain of command under Saddam.
One document gave the names of everyone from Dujail banished to a desert detention camp in southern Iraq.
Another, prepared by an aide to Saddam, gave the President a detailed account of the punitive measures against the people of Dujail following the failed assassi nation attempt.
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