Sky News has the headline: Saddam Hussein To Hang.
Excerpt:
Saddam initially refused to get to his feet for verdict Saddam Hussein To Hang
Updated: 16:31, Sunday November 05, 2006
Angry, shaking and defiant, Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death this morning by hanging for ordering the massacre of Iraqi civilians.
"Allahu Akbar!" (God is Greatest) and "Long live the nation!", he shouted, pointing defiantly at the judge as the verdict was delivered.
Looking away in disgust, and then staring angrily back at the judge he continued to shout "Long live the people and death to their enemies. Long live the glorious nation, and death to its enemies!"
He had refused to stand for the verdict and had to be lifted to his feet by two court bailiffs.
"Make him stand," the judge ordered as the former president stayed seated.
He then stood in silence and waited for his fate to be announced to the world.
Saddam was convicted of ordering the deaths of 148 Shia men and teenage boys in the town of Dujail in 1982.
The killings followed a failed assassination attempt against him and were intended to act as a grim warning to others not to oppose him.
Saddam shouted defiantly as he was sentenced to death Saddam was on trial with seven co-accused:
Awad Hamed al Bander, former chief judge in Saddam's Revolutionary Court, has been sentenced to hangSaddam's half-brother Barzan al Tikriti, head of the feared Mukhabarat intelligence service, was sentenced to hang
Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan was sentenced to life in prison
Three Ba'ath party officials were sentenced to 15 years in prison
Abdullah Kazim Ruwayyid, former Ba'ath official, given 15 years
Mizhar Abdullah Ruwayyid, former Ba'ath official, given 15 years
Ali Dayih Ali, former Ba'ath official, given 15 years
Mohammed Azawi Ali, a Ba'ath party official in Dujail, was cleared.
Saddam is in the middle of a second crimes against humanity trial and the appeal against the Dujail death sentence will start on Monday, taking two months.
He had wanted to face a firing squad - that request was refused.
Celebratory gunfire echoed across Baghdad while fighting broke out in the north of the city.
Hat Tips: Drudge
Sky News
Posts
8 comments:
I'm a bit saddened by your rejoicing over this.
I'm glad that he has been found guilty of these crimes but I think we should spare a thought for his victims.
I also think we should spare a thought for all the people who have died since. Ironically more people have died in Iraq since the removal of Saddam than he ever butchered.
Stating facts is not "rejoicing" ebsfwan. Stating that he is "getting what he deserves" is a work of justice in this world. The thousands of victims who died at the hand of his brutal regime have family members (if any were spared and are still alive, that is) who will see this for what it is. Justice served.
You said, "I also think we should spare a thought for all the people who have died since. Ironically more people have died in Iraq since the removal of Saddam than he ever butchered."
Not true.
He was also responsible for killing hundreds of thousands of people (besides the ones named in the trial) over his 30? year dictatorship reign. Many of the mass graves found over the past 3 years in Iraq (after his removal) have been an indication of many more murders. Some have estimated that the total dead at the hands of Saddam and his regime is more like 350,000!!
From this website, the estimate is even higher; closer to approaching 2 million!!:
Excerpt:
"Kill tally: Approaching two million, including between 150,000 and 340,000 Iraqis and between 450,000 and 730,000 Iranians killed during the Iran-Iraq War. An estimated 1,000 Kuwaiti nationals killed following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. No conclusive figures for the number of Iraqis killed during the Gulf War, with estimates varying from as few as 1,500 to as many as 200,000. Over 100,000 Kurds killed or "disappeared". No reliable figures for the number of Iraqi dissidents and Shia Muslims killed during Hussein's reign, though estimates put the figure between 60,000 and 150,000. (Mass graves discovered following the US occupation of Iraq in 2003 suggest that the total combined figure for Kurds, Shias and dissidents killed could be as high as 300,000). Approximately 500,000 Iraqi children dead because of international trade sanctions introduced following the Gulf War."
Christine, I'm not entirely sure what to make of this, but, I find myself in agreement with you yet again.
Saddam was tried on a smaller number of murders because there was specific evidence available to prosecute. He was responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths, and even more instances of torture.
I am not a supporter of this particular war. I was at the beginning, but, most people were because the information we were given was deceptive. Even our legislators, who now claim to have been against the war from the beginning, had the majority voting in favor of military action. How short the memory of a politician is when his or her job is up for reelection, huh? I'd like to see some stability brought to the region and our troops brought home as soon as possible, but not until the new Iraqi government feels it's time for us to leave.
Something that I heard on NPR one day really struck home with me. Statistically, we have a greater chance of being randomly murdered on the streets of Philadelphia PA/Camden NJ (which are right across the river from each other) than we do on the streets of Baghdad. In 2003, 04 and 05, there were a total of 49,422 murders on the streets of OUR country. In that same time period, there were 282,906 rapes and 2,569,358 aggravated assaults in our own country. There was a total of 4,134,459 violent crimes committed here, and we are NOT at war within the borders of this country! You can find these statistics at:
http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm
The estimates for Iraqi civilian casualties as of today range from 45,354 to 50,321. There have been 3,070 military personnel killed, including Americans and all other nationalities. Those totals include the first 10 months of 2006, whereas the US crime statistics stops at the end of 2005. There were just as many people killed in this country as were killed in the middle of a war zone in the same amount of time!
Every single life is important and precious. I'm not saying that the casualties of the Iraqi war are insignificant...they are. I also understand the numbers reflect a larger percentage because the population is smaller. However, those figures come nowhere near the number of people murdered by Hussein, who slaughtered his own people! The estimates for the total number of those murdered at the hands of Saddam settle somewhere around 600,00!
I AM rejoicing that Saddam was found guilty by his fellow countrymen. Very few men in history committed bigger acts of genocide than he did, and he deserves to be held accountable for that.
Well said Jaded. I'm also in agreement with you re: the war. I want our men home ASAP.
How ironic and only a day apart: Two men are found guilty - Saddam and Ted Haggard.
Sin can take all of us places we never expected to be. Thank God though for His love, forgiveness and the cross.
I think Haggard understands that concept. Saddam - he's another story.
"Celebratory gunfire echoed across Baghdad while fighting broke out in the north of the city."
In other words, it was pretty much a normal night in Baghdad.
So Saddam is going to hang. Big whoop. Does anyone here doubt that would be his fate from the moment we caught him?
Toppling his regime didn’t bring peace and democracy to Iraq. Capturing him didn’t do it. Hanging him won’t do it either. It’ll make the Shias happy, and the Kurds; they will cheer, and fire their AKs in the air, and give thanks to Allah; the Sunnis will weep and rend their clothes; and before his body is cold, they’ll all go back to killing each other…and our troops.
The late, unlamented Slobodan Milosevic was tried in an international court for his crimes in the former Yugoslavia. The US even supported this. But Saddam, an even bigger scumbag, got no such treatment. Make no mistake, Saddam deserves to hang, but this was not about justice; it’s all about vengeance. President Bush’s remark about how Saddam “tried to kill my dad” made that clear. We always insisted that he was to be tried in Iraq, by Iraqis; but they weren’t the only ones to suffer at his hands.
Several hundred thousand Iranians died because of him; he attacked Iran in 1980, trying to take advantage of the internal turmoil there after the fall of the Shah. In 1990, of course, he invaded Kuwait. Behind his fiction of reclaiming Iraq’s “19th province”, he was seeking to wipe out a war loan that he could not repay. During the 1991 war, he held Westerners—remember that clip of him with an obviously terrified British boy?—and threw missiles willy-nilly at Israel in an attempt to draw them into the conflict. Not to mention the ecological disaster he tried to create by burning Kuwait’s oil wells as his army was driven out. He was not behind the events of 9-11-01. Even the President’s own commission confirms that; but an amazing number of people still believe otherwise.
Saddam’s committed enough international crimes to go before an international court. But this Administration, with its contempt for law, wanted to control the trial from the get-go. Well, they got what they wanted; Saddam is guilty as sin, and he will die, and there’ll be one less psycho with power in the region…but will it change anything? Will Sunnis, and Saddam supporters, simply declare him a ‘martyr’ and fight on? It seems likely.
http://www.medialens.org/alerts/06/061018_democracy_and_debate.php
The scientists estimate that the most probable number of excess deaths is 654,965. They also estimate, with 95 per cent certainty, that the actual number lies between 392,979 and 942,636.
It is important to note that the standard figure for Iraqi deaths offered by the mainstream media is that supplied by Iraq Body Count (IBC). At time of writing, the "maximum" IBC figure stands at 48,783. There has long been great confusion among journalists about exactly what this figure represents. Many believe it describes the maximum possible total of Iraqi dead, or of all Iraqi civilians killed. In fact it is the figure solely for Iraqi civilian victims of violence as reported by at least two (mostly Western) media as selected by IBC for use in their study.
Post a Comment