‘Long live the people, death to their enemies’

SADDAM HUSSEIN was convicted and sentenced yesterday to hang for crimes against humanity in the 1982 killings of 148 people in a single Shi’ite 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 US forces.

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 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 Shi’ite 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 over three months ago.

Clashes immediately began yesterday 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 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 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.

Saddam’s chief lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi condemned the trial as a “farce,” claiming the verdict was planned. He said defence 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 yesterday’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.

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.

“By our souls, by our blood we sacrifice for you Saddam” and “Saddam your name shakes America.”

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.”

US officials associated with the tribunal 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 Shi’ites 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.

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 Shi’ites, 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 US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Appeal process: fate of the condemned rests with court

APPEALS:

* A nine-judge panel will review the evidence to determine if the convictions and sentences were just.

* There is no time limit on how long the judges can consider the appeal but deliberations are likely to take three to four weeks.

* If the appeals court upholds the sentences, they must be ratified by President Jalal Talabani and two vice presidents.

* Then, Saddam and the others are to be hanged within 30 days.

OTHER TRIALS:

* Saddam is also on trial for his crackdown against Iraqi Kurds in the late 80s.

* Chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi said the Anfal trial against Saddam will continue while the appeals court considers the verdict of death in the Dujail case.

* If the court upholds the death sentence and it is ratified, all other cases against him would cease.