Saddam Hussein sentenced to death
By Nicholas Brown,WNS Iraq Bureau Chief
BAGHDAD - Saddam Hussein has been convicted of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death by hanging. The former Iraqi leader was convicted over the killing of 148 people in the mainly Shia town of Dujail following an assassination attempt on him in 1982. His half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti and Iraq's former chief judge Awad Hamed al-Bandar were also sentenced to death. Former Vice-President Taha Yassin Ramadan got life in jail and three others received 15-year prison terms. Another co-defendant, Baath party official Mohammed Azawi Ali, was acquitted.
Saddam Hussein and his co-defendants will be given the right to appeal, but that is expected to take only a few weeks and to end in failure for the defendants. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki hailed the conviction in a televised address, saying that the sentence was "not a sentence on one man, but a sentence against all the dark period of his rule". "Maybe this will help alleviate the pain of the widows and the orphans, and those who have been ordered to bury their loved ones in secrecy, and those who have been forced to suppress their feelings and suffering, and those who have paid at the hands of torturers," Mr Maliki said.
US President George W Bush welcomed the verdict as a "milestone" in the efforts of the Iraqi people "to replace the rule of a tyrant with the rule of law". But the European Union urged Iraq not to carry out the death sentence.
posted by wnsworld @ 8:43 PM
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