Saddam deputy's 'execution' trial postponed

An Iraqi judge postponed a session in which Saddam Hussein’s former deputy Taha Yassin Ramadan had been expected to be sentenced to death today after lawyers for the plaintiffs failed to show up.

The court had been expected to raise the sentence after an appeals court ruled that Ramadan’s previous sentence of life in prison was too lenient.

Judge Ali al-Kahishi said the session would be adjourned until February 12, “because the plaintiff lawyers are not present in the court because they were not notified”.

The sentence was read by al-Kahishi, an aide to chief judge, Raouf Abdul-Rahman.

Abdul-Rahman is on holiday, Aref Shahin, chief judge of the appeals court, told The Associated Press.

Ramadan was accused in the Dujail case, which focused on the government’s killing in 1982 of 148 Shiites in a town north of Baghdad following an assassination attempt there against Saddam.

On November 5, Ramadan was convicted of murder, forced deportation and torture and sentenced to life in prison.

Later, the appeals court said the sentence was too lenient, and returned his case to the High Tribunal, demanding he be sentenced to death.

The court agreed to change it to a death sentence.