World mixed on Saddam sentence
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By The Associated Press | Monday, November 06, 2006 |
(The Associated Press) Iraqis celebrate after a court delivered a death sentence verdict for former leader Saddam Hussein, in Baghdad's Shiite enclave of Sadr City, Sunday, Nov. 5, 2006. Iraq's High Tribunal on Sunday found Saddam Hussein guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced him to hang, as the visibly shaken former leader shouted "God is great!"
TODAY: (Updated 3:27 p.m.) Saddam Hussein's death sentence was celebrated by some today as justice deserved or even divine, but denounced by others as a political ploy two days before critical U.S. midterm congressional elections.
Worldwide, the range of reactions, including a European outcry over capital punishment and doubts about the fairness of the tribunal that ordered Saddam to hang, reflected new geopolitical fault lines drawn after America's decision to invade Iraq in 2003 and depose its dictator.
The European Union welcomed the verdict but said Saddam should not be put to death. At the Vatican, Cardinal Renato Martino, Pope Benedict XVI's top prelate for justice issues, called the sentence a throwback to "eye for an eye" vengeance.
"This is not the way to present the new Iraq to the world, which is different from Saddam, who was behind hundreds of thousands of deaths as well as death penalty sentences," said Hands Off Cain, an Italian organization working to rid the world of capital punishment.
Islamic leaders warned that executing Saddam could inflame those who revile the U.S., undermining President Bush's policy in the Middle East and inspiring terrorists.
"The hanging of Saddam Hussein will turn to hell for the Americans," said Vitaya Wisethrat, a respected Muslim cleric in Thailand, which has its own Islamic insurgency in the country's south.
"The Saddam case is not a Muslim problem but the problem of America and its domestic politics," he said. "Maybe Bush will use this case to tell the voters that Saddam is dead and that the Americans are safe. But actually the American people will be in more danger with the death of Saddam."
Praising the Iraqi judiciary for its independence, the White House denied arranging for the verdict to be announced just two days before pivotal elections in which Democrats are fighting for control of Congress.
"The idea is preposterous," said Tony Snow, Bush's spokesman.
Yet there was a touch of contempt as well, reminiscent of the international response when the United States failed to find the weapons of mass destruction Bush insisted had made Saddam such a threat.
Intervening militarily was "a grave error," said Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, whose country withdrew its troops from Iraq, contending that conditions there have worsened since the U.S.-led invasion.
Although some voiced doubts that Saddam would actually be hanged, the International Federation for Human Rights denounced the death sentence, warning that it "will generate more violence and deepen the cycle of killing for revenge in Iraq." The Council of Europe called it "futile and wrong" to execute Saddam.
Louise Arbour, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, urged Iraq to ensure a fair appeals process and to refrain from executing Saddam even if the sentence is upheld.
In Pakistan, an opposition religious coalition claimed American forces have caused more deaths in Iraq in the past 3 1/2 years than Saddam did during his 23-year rule, and insisted Bush should stand trial for war crimes.
"Who will punish the Americans and their lackeys who have killed many more people than Saddam Hussein?" asked Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, a senior lawmaker from the Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal coalition, which is critical of Pakistan's military cooperation with the United States.
In the Arab world, some Muslims saw the sentence as divine retribution, but others decried it as a farce.
"Saddam is being judged by traitors, Americans and Iranians, and those who came on the backs of American tanks," said Mahmoud al-Saifi of the Arab Liberation Front.
Iran, which fought an eight-year war against Saddam's Iraq and is a bitter opponent of the United States, praised the death sentence and said it hoped that Saddam _ denounced by one lawmaker as "a vampire" _ still would be tried for other crimes.
Key U.S. allies _ including Britain and Australia _ welcomed Sunday's verdict, which had been widely expected.
"Appalling crimes were committed by Saddam Hussein's regime. It is right that those accused of such crimes against the Iraqi people should face Iraqi justice," British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said in a statement.
Amnesty International questioned the fairness of the trial, and international legal experts said Saddam should be kept alive long enough to answer for other atrocities.
"The longer we can keep Saddam alive, the longer the tribunal can have to explore some of the other crimes involving hundreds of thousands of Iraqis," said Sonya Sceats, an international law expert at the Chatham House foreign affairs think tank in London.
"The problem really is that this tribunal has not shown itself to be fair and impartial _ not only by international standards, but by Iraqi standards," she said.
Chandra Muzaffar, president of the Malaysian-based International Movement for a Just World, also voiced concerns that Saddam's trial "violated many established norms of international jurisprudence."
Even so, "Saddam was undoubtedly a brutal dictator, and even though I wouldn't subscribe to the death penalty, he deserves to be punished severely for the enormity of his crimes," he added.
Konstantin Kosachyov, the Kremlin-allied head of the international affairs committee in Russia's State Duma, or lower house of parliament, said the sentence would deepen divisions in Iraq.
But Kosachyov expressed doubts that Saddam would actually be executed.
The verdict, he said, was mostly symbolic _ "retribution that modern Iraq is taking against Saddam's regime."
EARLIER STORY
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Saddam Hussein was convicted and sentenced Sunday to hang for crimes against humanity in the 1982 killings of 148 people in a single Shiite 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 by the Iraqi High Tribunal, Saddam yelled out, "Long live the people and death to their enemies. Long live the glorious nation, and death to its enemies!" Later, his lawyer said the former dictator had called on Iraqis to reject sectarian violence and refrain from revenge against U.S. forces.
The trial brought Saddam and his co-defendants before their accusers in what was one of the most highly publicized and heavily reported trials of its kind since the Nuremberg tribunals for members of Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime and its slaughter of 6 million Jews in the World War II Holocaust
"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 has was unmatched in Iraq's history," Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq's Shiite prime minister, said.
Some feared the verdicts could exacerbate the sectarian violence that has pushed the country to the brink of civil war, after a trial that stretched over nine months in 39 sessions and ended nearly 3 1/2 months ago. The verdict came two days before midterm elections in the United States widely seen as a referendum on the Bush administration's policy in Iraq. U.S. and Iraqi officials have denied the timing was deliberate.
In north Baghdad's heavily Sunni Azamiyah district, clashes broke out between police and gunmen. 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 television 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. Al-Maliki's Islamic Dawa party, then an underground opposition, has claimed responsibility for organizing 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.
Saddam's chief lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi condemned the trial as a "farce," claiming the verdict was planned. He said defense attorneys would appeal within 30 days.
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 The Associated Press 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 U.S. 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 Abdul-Rahman pointed to 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 Baath Party official, was acquitted for lack of evidence and immediately freed.
He faces additional charges in a separate case over an alleged massacre of Kurdish civilians _ a trial that will continue while appeals are pending.
The guilty verdict is likely to enrage hard-liners among Saddam's fellow Sunnis, who made up the bulk of the former ruling class. The country's majority Shiites, who were persecuted under the former leader but now largely control the government, will likely view the outcome as a cause of celebration.
Al-Dulaimi, Saddam's lawyer, told AP his client called on Iraqis to reject sectarian violence and called on them to refrain from taking revenge on U.S. invaders.
"His message to the Iraqi people was 'pardon and do not take revenge on the invading nations and their people'," 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 favorite son through the streets. Some declared the court a product of the U.S. "occupation forces" and condemned the verdict.
"By our souls, by our blood we sacrifice for you Saddam" and "Saddam your name shakes America."
U.S. 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," Khalilzad said.
Two U.S. officials who worked as advisers to the court on matters of international judicial procedures said Saddam's repeated courtroom outbursts during the nine-month 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 Shiites 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 Shiites, their most direct evidence against him.
About 50 of those sentenced by the "Revolutionary Court" died during interrogation before they could go to the gallows. Some of those hanged were children.
"Every time they (defendants) rose and spoke, they provided a lot of incriminating evidence," said one of the U.S. 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 U.S. 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 assassination attempt.
Saddam's trial had from the outset appeared to reflect the turmoil and violence in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
One of Saddam's lawyers was assassinated the day after the trial's opening session last year. Two more were later assassinated and a fourth fled the country.
In January, chief judge Rizgar Amin, a Kurd, resigned after complaints by Shiite politicians that he had failed to keep control of court proceedings. He, in turn, complained of political interference in the trial. Abdul-Rahman, another Kurd, replaced Amin.
Hearings were frequently disrupted by outbursts from Saddam and Ibrahim, with the two raging against what they said was the illegitimacy of the court, their ill treatment in the U.S.-run facility where they are being held and the lack of protection for their lawyers.
The defense lawyers contributed to the chaos in the courtroom by staging several boycotts.
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