Saddam sentence 'sends dangerous message'

The head of the Council of Europe’s legislature today warned that Saddam Hussein’s death sentence would send a “dangerous message to the region”.

Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly president Rene van der Linden said that although Saddam should have been found guilty, death by hanging will only heighten tensions in Iraq.

“Iraq today does not need more death. Capital punishment is wrong – even for the worst crimes – and I appeal to the Iraqi authorities not to carry out this sentence,” the leader of Europe’s foremost human rights organisation said in a Strasbourg statement.

“The crimes committed by Saddam Hussein are appalling, and it is right that he be judged and punished for them,” Van der Linden said.

“But the sentence of the death penalty sends a dangerous message to the region: that the new Iraq is to be built on vengeance rather than respect for fundamental human values.”

Officials from the UN, the Vatican and the European Union have also denounced the sentence, hoping that it will somehow be commuted. The US hailed the verdict, calling the sentence the result of an independent Iraqi judiciary.

The 46 member states of the Council of Europe ban the death penalty.