Appeals court to rule on guilty verdict by January

IRAQ’S appeals court is expected to rule on Saddam Hussein’s guilty verdict and death sentence by the middle of January, the chief prosecutor said yesterday.

Additionally, it has emerged, Iraq’s three-man presidential council agreed at least six months ago not to block the death penalty for Saddam, should it be upheld on appeal.

The news came hours after British prime minister Tony Blair said Britain is against the death penalty for “Saddam or anybody else,” but remained otherwise tightlipped on the sentence passed on the former Iraqi dictator.

At his monthly Downing Street press conference, Blair was pressed several times on what he thought about the death sentence handed down on Saddam and repeatedly refused to comment.

“We are against the death penalty whether it’s Saddam or anybody else,” was the furthest he went, declining to add anything more specific on the significance of a ruling which some hoped would be a turning point for Iraq.

All three members of the Presidential Council (President Jalal Talabani and vice-presidents Tariq al-Hashimi and Adil Abdul-Mahdi) must sign death warrants before executions can be carried out.

Talabani, a Kurd who opposes capital punishment, has permanently deputised Abdul-Mahdi, a Shi’ite Muslim, to sign on his behalf.

Abdul-Mahdi has said he would sign Saddam’s death warrant, meaning two of three signatures were assured.

Al-Hashimi, the other vice-president and a Sunni Muslim, gave his word that he also would sign a Saddam death penalty sentence as part of the deal under which he got the job on April 22, according to witnesses at the meeting, which was attended by US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad.

Thus the approval of the death penalties handed down Sunday for Saddam, his half-brother, Barzan Ibrahim, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, chief of the Revolutionary Court, had been part of the pact under which al-Hashimi got one of two vice presidential post.

If the nine-judge appeals panel upholds the death sentences, they could be ready for signing early next year, according to a schedule laid out yesterday by chief prosecutor Jaafar Moussawi.

Meanwhile, Baghdad lifted a round-the-clock curfew imposed to prevent attacks in the aftermath of the ousted president’s death sentence. The curfew had been imposed in Baghdad, Diyala and Salaheddin since 6am Sunday (3am Irish time).