Egypt: Blogger Who Insulted Islam Loses Appeal

On February 25, Egyptian blogger Abdel Kareem Nabil Suleiman was found guilty of "insulting Islam". 22-year old Abdel Kareem (pictured) was also found guilty of criticizing Al-Azhar University, which is the largest Sunni theological college in the world. Kareem had been a former student at this university before he was expelled in March 2006.

The father of the law student showed the intolerance typical of Al-Azhar University, where he had forcibly sent Kareem to study. The father demonstrated the love and charity of Islam by declaring that he disowned Kareem, and wanted him executed.

Kareem's blog is still online, even though on February 25, the court in Alexandria sentenced him to four years' jail. He had been sentenced to three years for insulting Islam. Additionally Kareem had been found guilty of "spreading information disruptive of public order and damaging to the country's reputation", and "defaming the President of the Republic". For defaming the undemocratic tyrant Hosni Mubarak, he was given a one year sentence.

Kareem had become an apostate from Islam. After the rioting which took place in Alexandria in October 2005, when mosques organized their followers to attack Coptic Christians, Kareem wrote: "The Muslims have taken the mask off to show their true hateful face, and they have shown the world that they are at the top of their brutality, inhumanity, and thievery. Some may think that the actions of the Moslems does not represent Islam and has no relationship with the teachings of Islam that was brought by Mohamed fourteen centuries ago, but the truth is that their actions is not different from the Islamic teachings in its original form."

Last year, Kareem was one of seven bloggers who were arrested for challenging the corrupt regime of Hosni Mubarak and the Islamist judiciary, but was the first to be convicted.

Today, the Court of Appeal in Alexandria has ruled that the four year jail sentence shall be upheld. His lawyer has said that the case will now be taken to the Supreme Court. Ahmed Saif said: "Kareem was in the court but I was unable to talke to him. There was a huge crowd of supporters and journalists . We lodged the request and hope to be able to meet our client this week or the next."

One of Kareem's last blogs made before his arrest has been translated by the Free Kareem Coalition. It can be found in its entirety here entitled: "There Is No Deity But The Human Being."

This is an extract:

Freedom, as I learned it, understood it, and believed in it, is the removal of all restrictions from the human being's burden. Slavery, which is its antithesis, means the submission of the human being by imposing some restrictions on his life for the purpose of controlling him. Where restrictions are found, freedom disappears, and where freedom is found, the restrictions fall. This is obvious and does not require practical evidence, and it is illogical to object to it on the grounds that societal principles or religious beliefs must be taken into account. Either absolute freedom is our goal, or we be honest with ourselves and declare our hatred and rejection of it, and declare our preference to surrendering to restrictions over having freedom handed to us.

Freedom's denial of restrictions does not mean that the human being has the complete freedom to do everything he is able to do. Being powerful does not mean that I am free to subjugate he who is less powerful than I am. For one of the most important principles of freedom is to not trespass on the limits of others' freedoms; this is so that freedom will be meaningful, and not be merely a justification for the actions of those who take advantage of their power to subdue others. Freedom - coupled with responsibility - is a right for all human beings with no distinction, and in order to have this right implemented in a realistic picture, every individual must respect the freedom of others and not degrade it. The law is what organizes this matter, and prevents individuals from trespassing on each other in the name of freedom.

It should be noted that for the past 25 years, America has spent billions in aid to the shabby political regime of Egypt, via its USAID program. If America is so bothered about a lack of democracy in countries like Iraq, then perhaps US citizens should be lobbying their congressmen. While Hosni Mubarak does not allow freedom of speech to those who would criticize him, then perhaps USAID money should be suspended until this freedom of speech, a sine quae non of democracy, is actually practiced in Egypt.

Principled moves from Malaysia

In the midst of the escalating tensions and intense diplomatic flurries surrounding the Middle East in the last few weeks, the Malaysian government has shown a commitment to certain fundamental principles which deserves to be commended.

By making an official visit to Syria at a time when the Israeli and U.S. governments are going all out to isolate and weaken Damascus politically, Prime Minster Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has sent an unambiguous message to Tel Aviv and Washington: He will not kowtow to them and compromise Malaysia’s independent foreign policy. Malaysia will stick to its friends and ensure that truth and justice prevail in the international arena. Abdullah is very much aware of why and how Tel Aviv and Washington are seeking to change the balance of power in the Middle East by targeting independent-minded nation-states such as Syria and Iran and destroying mass movements which embody the popular will such as Hamas and Hezbollah, so that a ‘new’ Middle East dominated by the Tel Aviv-Washington axis would consolidate itself.

Besides, as chair of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), Malaysia has an obligation to check the devious moves that are now being made by the Olmert and Bush administrations, with the connivance of certain Arab and Muslim leaders, to divide and manipulate Arab and Muslim states and communities along Sunni-Shia, Arab-Persian lines. The OIC chair should do its utmost to maintain intra-Arab and intra-Muslim unity at this critical juncture. It would do well to remember that an intra-Muslim conflict in the Middle East in the 1980s, between Iraq and Iran -- a war manufactured by forces within and without the region -- had resulted in a million deaths, the emasculation of two rich oil-based economies, and the weakening of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the Organization of the Islamic Conference OIC, and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). No peace-loving human being would want to witness a repeat of such a colossal catastrophe -- which is why any attempt to drive a wedge between Syria or Iran and the rest should be foiled.

The Malaysian government has also displayed a degree of integrity in urging Muslim states to sever diplomatic ties with Israel or to at least recall their ambassadors temporarily in order to protest the Tel Aviv government’s stubborn refusal to stop the construction work at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem (Beit-ul-Moqaddas). This work, it is alleged, will endanger the foundations of the mosque, which is the third holiest site in the Muslim world. Some demonstration of displeasure on the part of Muslim states would show that “we are serious and do not engage in mere empty talk”, as the Malaysian Minster of Foreign Affairs, Dato Seri Syed Hamid Albar, rightly observed.

Syed Hamid’s proposal is significant for two reasons. One, it is a reflection of how the vast majority of Muslims feel about Israel, given its arrogance and insolence evinced through numerous acts of oppression and subjugation over the course of the last 59 years. Two, the proposal has been put forward at a time when the Saudi leadership and certain other governments in the Muslim world are beginning to assert their independence and are trying to play a more proactive role in protecting the interests of the ummah in the Middle East. This is clearly mirrored in the recent Saudi-initiated Mecca Agreement which brought the two feuding Palestinian factions -- Hamas and Fatah -- together.

By Chandra Muzaffar - Tehran Times

Saddam Is Dead - So Are 3,000 Americans

Saddam Hussein is dead. So are three thousand Americans. why 3,000 dead is such a landmark ?

The regime in Iraq has been changed. Yet victory will not be declared: not only does the war go on, it's about to escalate. Obviously the turmoil in Iraq is worse than ever, and most Americans no longer are willing to tolerate the costs, both human and economic, associated with this war.

Many more Americans have been killed in Iraq than were killed in the first 45 months of our war in Vietnam. The election is over and Americans have spoken. Enough is enough! They want the war ended and our troops brought home. But the opposite likely will occur, with bipartisan support. Up to 50,000 more troops will be sent. The goal no longer is to win, but simply to secure Baghdad! So much has been spent with so little to show for it.

Yes, Saddam Hussein is dead, and only the Sunnis mourn. The Shi'ites and Kurds celebrate his death, as do the Iranians and especially bin Laden – all enemies of Saddam Hussein. We have performed a tremendous service for both bin Laden and Ahmadinejad, and it will cost us plenty. The violent reaction to our complicity in the execution of Saddam Hussein is yet to come.

Three thousand American military personnel are dead, more than 22,000 are wounded, and tens of thousands will be psychologically traumatized by their tours of duty in Iraq. Little concern is given to the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians killed in this war

More Americans have now died in Iraq than in the attacks of 9/11. On the last day of 2006, America recorded the 3,000th soldier to die in action in Iraq. The statistic is hardly acknowledged by the US administration and media, still wallowing in Saddam's execution.

Its significance is not lost on the American public, however. The figure surpasses the 2,997 who died - or went missing, presumed dead - on 9/11.

But for the huge improvements in battlefield surgery in the past decade, the death toll in Iraq would have been much higher. Experts suggest that if combat recovery conditions were the same now as they were in Vietnam, the death toll might have been ten times greater – around 30,000 for the Americans and approaching 1,500 for British forces, who by the end of 2006 had lost 127 troops (half the 255 dead in the three-month Falklands War).

Iraq's massive oil reserves, the third-largest in the world, are about to be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil companies under a controversial law which is expected to come before the Iraqi parliament within days.

The US government has been involved in drawing up the law, a draft of which has been seen by The Independent on Sunday. It would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972.

So was this what the Iraq war was fought for, after all? As the number of US soldiers killed since the invasion rises past the 3,000 mark, and President George Bush gambles on sending in up to 30,000 more troops, The Independent on Sunday has learnt that the Iraqi government is about to push through a law giving Western oil companies the right to exploit the country's massive oil reserves.

Now, unnoticed by most amid the furore over civil war in Iraq and the hanging of Saddam Hussein, the new oil law has quietly been going through several drafts, and is now on the point of being presented to the cabinet and then the parliament in Baghdad. Its provisions are a radical departure from the norm for developing countries: under a system known as "production-sharing agreements", or PSAs, oil majors such as BP and Shell in Britain, and Exxon and Chevron in the US, would be able to sign deals of up to 30 years to extract Iraq's oil.

PSAs allow a country to retain legal ownership of its oil, but gives a share of profits to the international companies that invest in infrastructure and operation of the wells, pipelines and refineries. Their introduction would be a first for a major Middle Eastern oil producer. Saudi Arabia and Iran, the world's number one and two oil exporters, both tightly control their industries through state-owned companies with no appreciable foreign collaboration, as do most members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Opec.

Critics fear that given Iraq's weak bargaining position, it could get locked in now to deals on bad terms for decades to come. "Iraq would end up with the worst possible outcome," said Greg Muttitt of Platform, a human rights and environmental group that monitors the oil industry. He said the new legislation was drafted with the assistance of BearingPoint, an American consultancy firm hired by the US government, which had a representative working in the American embassy in Baghdad for several months.

Britain and the US have always hotly denied that the war was fought for oil. On 18 March 2003, with the invasion imminent, Tony Blair proposed the House of Commons motion to back the war. "The oil revenues, which people falsely claim that we want to seize, should be put in a trust fund for the Iraqi people administered through the UN," he said.

"The United Kingdom should seek a new Security Council Resolution that would affirm... the use of all oil revenues for the benefit of the Iraqi people."

That suggestion came to nothing. In May 2003, just after President Bush declared major combat operations at an end, under a banner boasting "Mission Accomplished", Britain co-sponsored a resolution in the Security Council which gave the US and UK control over Iraq's oil revenues. Far from "all oil revenues" being used for the Iraqi people, Resolution 1483 continued to make deductions from Iraq's oil earnings to pay compensation for the invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

That exception aside, however, the often-stated aim of the US and Britain was that Iraq's oil money would be used to pay for reconstruction. In July 2003, for example, Colin Powell, then Secretary of State, insisted: "We have not taken one drop of Iraqi oil for US purposes, or for coalition purposes. Quite the contrary... It cost a great deal of money to prosecute this war. But the oil of the Iraqi people belongs to the Iraqi people; it is their wealth, it will be used for their benefit. So we did not do it for oil."

Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Defense Secretary at the time of the war and now head of the World Bank, told Congress: "We're dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon."

But this optimism has proved unjustified. Since the invasion, Iraqi oil production has dropped off dramatically. The country is now producing about two million barrels per day. That is down from a pre-war peak of 3.5 million barrels. Not only is Iraq's whole oil infrastructure creaking under the effects of years of sanctions, insurgents have constantly attacked pipelines, so that the only steady flow of exports is through the Shia-dominated south of the country.

Worsening sectarian violence and gangsterism have driven most of the educated élite out of the country for safety, depriving the oil industry of the Iraqi experts and administrators it desperately needs.

Read : " Blood and oil: How the West will profit from Iraq's most precious commodity" - In just 40 pages, Iraq is locked into sharing its oil with foreign investors for the next 30 years

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Before Hanging, a Push for Revenge and a Push Back

As US-Iraqis disagreed, Saddam still believed he might cheat hanging in the end because of crucial negotiations. NY Times.
Jan 7, 2007

By John F. Burns

Baghdad — When American soldiers woke Saddam Hussein in his cell near Baghdad airport at 3:55 a.m. last Saturday, they told him to dress for a journey to Baghdad. He had followed the routine dozens of times before, travelling by helicopter in the predawn darkness to the courtroom where he spent 14 months on trial for his life.

When his cell lights were dimmed on Friday night, Mr. Hussein may have hoped that he would live a few days longer, and perhaps cheat the hangman altogether.

According to Task Force 134, the American military unit responsible for all Iraqi detainees, Mr Hussein “had heard some of the rumors on the radio about potential execution dates.”

But never one to understate his own importance, he had told his lawyers for months that the Americans might spare him in the end, for negotiations to end the insurgency whose daily bombings rattled his cellblock windows.

As Mr. Hussein prepared to walk out into the chill of the desert winter, dressed in a tailored black overcoat, that last illusion was shattered.

After being roused and told that he was being transferred to Iraqi custody, a task force statement e-mailed to The New York Times a week later revealed, “he immediately indicated that he knew the execution would soon follow.”

“As he left the detention area, he thanked the guards and medics for the treatment he had received,” Lt Col Keir-Kevin Curry, spokesman for the task force, said.

Mr Hussein was then driven to a waiting Black Hawk helicopter for a 10-minute flight to the old Istikhbarat prison in northern Baghdad, where a party of Iraqi officials awaited him at the gallows.

“During this brief period of transfer, Saddam Hussein appeared more serious,” the task force said.

The time as the helicopter took off was 5:05 am, and Mr Hussein had 65 minutes to live. But as he flew over the darkened suburbs of a Baghdad enduring another winter with only flickering electrical power, he can have known little of the last-minute battle waged between top Iraqi and American officials — and among the Americans themselves — over whether the execution, fraught with legal ambiguities and Islamic religious sensitivities, should go ahead.

American opposition to executing him in haste centered partly on the fact that the Id al-Adha religious holiday, marking the end of the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, began for Sunnis at sunrise on Saturday.

In Baghdad that day, the sun was to rise at 7:06 am Iraqi government officials had promised the hanging would be over before the dawn light began seeping through the palm trees that shade the capital’s streets.

The taunts Mr Hussein endured from Shiite guards as he stood with the noose around his neck have made headlines around the world, and stirred angry protests among his fellow Iraqi Sunnis.

But the story of how American commanders and diplomats fought to halt the execution until midnight on Friday, only six hours before Mr Hussein was hanged, is only now coming into focus, as Iraqi and American officials, in the glare of international outrage over the hanging, compete with their versions of what happened.....(Read the story HERE)


Ban Ki-moon urges Iraqi Government not to execute those on death row

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today urged the Government of Iraq to grant a stay of execution to those whose death sentences may be carried out in the near future.

His Chef de Cabinet, Vijay Nambiar, in a letter to Iraq's UN ambassador, today reiterated the Secretary General's endorsement of the call made earlier this month by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, for restraint by the Government in carrying out death sentences imposed by the Iraqi High Tribunal.

The letter also refers to the Secretary-General's view that all members of the international community should pay due regard to all aspects of international humanitarian and human rights laws, according to a spokesman for Mr. Ban said.

On 3 January, reacting to the Government's plans to execute two high-ranking co-defendants of former president Saddam Hussein, who had already been hanged, Ms. Arbour pointed out that international law “only allows the imposition of the death penalty as an exceptional measure within rigorous legal constraints.”

The High Commissioner had previously voiced concern about the fairness and impartiality of Saddam Hussein's trial.


RIGHTS:
Saddam Hanging Boosts Case for Int'l Criminal Court

The manner in which former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was hanged has provoked revulsion and criticism in many countries around the world including India, home to 120 million Muslims.

Those who oppose the death penalty on principle were joined by critics of the trial process and those appalled by the timing of the execution on the first day of Eid-al-Adha, which marks a holy period in the Muslim calendar.

They point out that numerous governments have criticised Hussein's hanging as an instance of "victor's justice". The United Nations has had to correct the first response of the new Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon by recalling the organisation's opposition to capital punishment....(more)


Mid East Saddam Hussein Iraq US Malaysia Europe

Saddam murder: A Criminal act of Cowardice

The murder of ex-President Saddam Hussein in Baghdad was perhaps the worst example of political blindness shown by the inept, incompetent and incapacitated Bush regime.

From the beginning, the war in Iraq lacked one fundamental precept: legality. From the beginning, the kangaroo court hurriedly set up to try Saddam Hussein and other members of the Ba’athist Party lacked one fundamental precept: legality, as expressed by numerous international experts.

From the very beginning, the foreign policy launched by the Bush regime (the lies of Colin Powell at the UNO, the lies of George Bush, who knew not only that Iraq had WMD but even knew exactly where they were, the shock and awe campaign which was no more than a criminal act of butchery) proved to be wholly out of tune with the rest of Humankind, a sort of Hitlerian spasm which humanity appears to suffer from every so many years.

The criminal act of invading a sovereign nation outside the UN auspices, of targeting civilian structures with military hardware, of removing a State so irresponsibly, has sent Iraqi society back three centuries in three years. Women, for instance, have lost any rights they gained under Saddam, and now are unable to venture out without a veil and religion is no longer a private matter, but a cause to be killed for, while the Kurds fight to keep Saria law out of their constitution. This is the Iraq of George Bush.

Sectarian violence is rife and increasing and civilian casualties are reaching shocking proportions of tens of thousands a year. So what did the Bush regime wish to achieve with the murder of Saddam Hussein?

Does George Bush believe that two wrongs make a right? He should know, after all Saddam Hussein was hanged for signing 148 death warrants for high treason, while George Bush signed 152 as Governor of Texas, for lesser crimes.

With the Sunni community deploring this wanton act of cruelty and the Shiite community celebrating, how much nearer to open civil war does the Bush regime wish to push Iraq?

The hurried way in which Saddam Hussein was dispatched raises the suspicion that there was something to hide. After all, why were we not shown the footage of the trial? Why did 99 per cent of the proceedings take place in secrecy? What did Saddam Hussein say in his defence? Who sold him the weapons? Who sold him the gas? Upon whose orders? Did Iraq gas the Kurds or was it some other neighbouring state with a Kurdish question to solve at a moment when it would be easy to blame someone else?

These are questions to which we will never know the answer because the Government of the United States of America was unable or unwilling to face the truth. The murder of Saddam Hussein was therefore a criminal act of cowardice which created a martyr out of a man who could easily have been portrayed as a monster and which underlines the criminal, murderous traits of George Bush the man and the Presidency of the USA today. The monster, after all, sits in the Oval Office, Washington, the scene of many lurid acts in recent years.

Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY
PRAVDA.Russia


Saddam Mid East US murder

Hanged Almost Without Trial

Saddam Hussein was convicted and hanged without fair trial, leading human rights groups said after his execution Saturday.

"Amnesty International believes the whole process was deeply flawed," James Dyson from Amnesty told IPS. The Iraqi Appeals Court failed to address the major flaws during the former dictator's trial before the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal (SICT), Amnesty said in a statement Saturday.

Human Rights Watch had issued a 97-page report last month detailing numerous flaws in the trial of Saddam.

"The Iraqi high tribunal was not independent of political pressure coming from the Iraqi cabinet," Richard Dicker from Human Rights Watch told IPS Saturday. "In January this year the judge in Saddam's trial resigned in protest because he was publicly criticised by the prime minister for being too lenient in the way he was conducting proceedings."

That kind of political interference, he said, is "wholly inappropriate to the judicial process."

What Saddam had faced, he said, was "trial by ambush" that was marked by the failure of prosecution to provide defence attorneys evidence that was being introduced in court. Sometimes the evidence to be presented was given to defence lawyers at the last minute, and sometimes not at all, he said. That denied "an effective and meaningful defence."

The Human Rights Watch report, 'Judging Dujail: The First Trial Before the Iraqi High Tribunal' was based on 10 months of observation and dozens of interviews with judges, prosecutors and defence lawyers.

According to the human rights group, the report found, among other defects, "violations of the defendants' right to question prosecution witnesses, and the presiding judge's demonstrations of bias."

Saddam's defence lawyers had 30 days to file an appeal from the Nov. 5 verdict pronouncing the death sentence. "However, the trial judgment was only made available to them on November 22, leaving just two weeks to respond." The appeals chamber announced its confirmation of the verdict and the death sentence Dec. 26.

"It defies imagination that the appeals chamber could have thoroughly reviewed the 300-page judgment and the defence's written arguments in less than three weeks' time," said Dicker in a statement put out by Human Rights Watch. "The appeals process appears even more flawed than the trial."

Both Amnesty and Human Rights Watch had over many years documented human rights abuses under the regime of Saddam Hussein -- at a time when Western governments paid little heed to those reports, let alone act on them.

"These crimes include the killing of more than 100,000 Iraqi Kurds in Northern Iraq as part of the 1998 Anfal campaign," Human Rights Watch said in its statement. The execution of Saddam Hussein means the truth in that case might now never be known.

"At the time of his hanging, Saddam Hussein and others were on trial for genocide for the 1988 Anfal campaign," Human Rights Watch said. "The victims, including women, children and the elderly, were selected because they were Kurds who remained on their traditional lands in zones outside of areas controlled by Baghdad. Hussein's execution will therefore jeopardize the trial of these most serious crimes."

Amnesty and Human Rights Watch both oppose use of the death penalty on principle, and the groups say handing the death sentence has been compounded by an unfair trial in the first place.

"We oppose the death penalty in all cases as a violation of the right to life and the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment, but it is especially abhorrent when this most extreme penalty is imposed after an unfair trial," Malcolm Smart, director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Programme said in a statement.

"It is even more worrying that in this case, the execution appeared a foregone conclusion, once the original verdict was pronounced, with the appeals court providing little more than a veneer of legitimacy for what was, in fact, a fundamentally flawed process."

The trial "will be seen by many as nothing more than 'victor's justice' and, sadly, will do nothing to stem the unrelenting tide of political killings," Smart said.

Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death on Nov. 5 this year after being convicted in connection with the killing of 148 people from al-Dujail village north of Baghdad after an attempt to assassinate him there in 1982.

The trial, which began in October 2005 almost two years after Saddam Hussein was captured by U.S. forces, ended in July this year.

"Every accused has a right to a fair trial, whatever the magnitude of the charge against them," said Smart. "This plain fact was routinely ignored through the decades of Saddam Hussein's tyranny. His overthrow opened the opportunity to restore this basic right and, at the same time, to ensure, fairly, accountability for the crimes of the past. It is an opportunity missed, and made worse by the imposition of the death penalty."

"The test of a government's commitment to human rights is measured by the way it treats its worst offenders," said Dicker. "History will judge these actions harshly."

In an official statement, the Indian Government has expressed disappointment over the execution of Saddam Hussein.

"We hope that the unfortunate event will not affect the process of reconciliation, restoration of peace and normalcy in Iraq," he said.

The government had earlier expressed opposition to Hussein's execution and cautioned that no steps should be taken which could delay restoration of peace in the troubled country.

Pakistan calls Saddam hanging a 'sad event'

n a low-key reaction, Pakistan described the execution of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussain as a 'sad event' which was a 'poignant reminder' of the violence that gripped Iraq.

"The execution of former President Saddam Hussein, which can only be described as a sad event, is another poignant reminder of the violence that continues to grip Iraq," a statement issued by the Pakistan Foreign Office said.

"We hope that this event would not further exacerbate the security situation. It remains our earnest hope to see peace, stability and reconciliation so that people of Iraq regain control of their affairs in a secure environment," it said.

UN against death penalty but understands desire for justice in Hussein case – envoy

Reacting to the imposition of the death sentence against Saddam Hussein, who ruled Iraq with terror for nearly a quarter of a century until his ouster in 2003, the senior United Nations envoy there voiced understanding about the desire for justice among many people but reiterated the world body's longstanding opposition to capital punishment.

“The United Nations stands firmly against impunity, and understands the desire for justice felt by the many Iraqis,” Special Representative Ashraf Qazi said through a spokesman.

“Based on the principle of respect for the right to life, however, the United Nations remains opposed to capital punishment, even in the case of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.”

Iraqi officials present at the hanging say Saddam went to his death a broken man, but showed no remorse for his actions. Hours later, bomb attacks in Baghdad and the Shi'ite city of Kufa killed at least 68 people.

Iraqi National Security Advisor Moaffaq al-Rubaie, who witnessed the execution, said it was handled completely by the Iraqis, and no American witnesses were present.

Hours after the execution, three bombs exploded in close coordination in Baghdad, killing more than a dozen people. To the south, in Kufa, more than 30 people were killed when a car bomb exploded in a busy fish market.

In Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, police blocked the entrances to the town, and said nobody was allowed to leave or enter for four days. Elsewhere, Iraqi and U.S. forces remained on heightened alert.

Saddam buried in Awja

Relatives of the former Iraqi president say Saddam Hussein has been buried in a family plot in Awja, close to Tikrit.

An earlier family statement issued on Saturday night said the executed leader would be buried in Ramadi, but the authorities there said they were unaware of any plan to bury him there.


‘I Saw Fear, He Was Afraid’
In a Newsweek interview, the man hired to videotape Saddam’s execution recalls his humble final moments.
Dec 30, 2006

Ali Al Massedy was 3 feet away from Saddam Hussein when he died. The 38 year old, normally Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's official videographer, was the man responsible for filming the late dictator's execution at dawn on Saturday. "I saw fear, he was afraid," Ali told NEWSWEEK minutes after returning from the execution. Wearing a rumpled green suit and holding a Sony HDTV video camera in his right hand, Ali recalled the dictator's last moments. "He was saying things about injustice, about resistance, about how these guys are terrorists," he says. On the way to the gallows, according to Ali, "Saddam said, ‘Iraq without me is nothing.’"

Ali says he followed Saddam up the gallows steps, escorted by two guards. He stood over the hole and filmed from close quarters as Saddam dropped through—from "me to you," he said, crouching down to show how he shot the scene. The distance, he said, was "about one meter," he said. "He died absolutely, he died instantly." Ali said Saddam's body twitched, "shaking, very shaking," but "no blood," he said, and "no spit." (Ali said he was not authorized to disclose the location, and did not give other details of the room.)

Ali said the videotape lasts about 15 minutes. When NEWSWEEK asked to see a copy, Ali said he had already handed the tape over to Maliki's chief of staff. "It is top secret," he said. He would not give the names of officials in attendance, though he estimates there were around 20 observers. One of them, Iraqi National Security Adviser Mouwaffak al-Rubaie, told CNN that Saddam clasped a Koran as the noose was tied around his neck, and refused to wear a hood. He also said that government officials had not decided whether or not to release the videotape. The execution reportedly took place at 6:05 a.m. local time. Prime Minister Maliki did not attend.

Ali was greeted as a hero when he returned from the execution a little after 7 a.m., flying in with other officials and landing in two helicopters in the Green Zone. A convoy of 20 or so GMCs and Toyota Land Cruisers waited outside to drive some of the Iraqi officials home.

The Iraqi bodyguards, mostly Shiites they said, had passed the time smoking and praying—some prayed on cardboard mats on the street.

It was a cold morning in Baghdad, a few degrees above freezing, and in the post dawn light the guards' breaths could be seen in the air. When the thudding of helicopters began, the body guards rushed towards the entrance to the landing zone. They swarmed around Ali, snapping digital pictures on camera phones and cheering. "Saddam finished, Saddam finished," a guard who gave his name as Mohammed told NEWSWEEK. Ali looked somewhat stunned as he exited, carrying the camera.

"All Iraqis will be happy," he says. "This is the most important day for me [as a cameraman,]" he said. "This page [in history] is over, this page is over. All Iraqis will be happy from the north to the south to the east to the west." One of the judges who presided over the execution then came out to the street; Ali jumped in a car with him. The convoy of SUVs drove off, one after the other, with the occasional honk of the horn.

Unreleased Saddam Hussein Execution Video

The question remains on many conspiracy websites, is this really Saddam Hussein with a noose around his neck? While there will be no end to the debate about the true identity of the man hanged, compelling evidence exists to suggest the person on trial was an imposter. Possibly one of the many security doubles the former Iraqi dictator employed.

The video released shows new angle of Saddam's execution. These are the real videos, showing you what the media refuses to.

The video show the actual hanging, view discretion is advised. Download the video HERE.
(Note:To start this P2P download, you have to install a BitTorrent client like µTorrent )


Mid East Saddam Hussein Iraq US

Saddam Hussein is hanged

Saddam Hussein, the man who dominated Iraq with brutal violence for nearly 25 years, was executed before dawn this morning (at 6am local time). The 69-year-old leader, who was overthrown by a multi-national coalition led by the United States in 2003, was convicted of crimes against humanity.

Since the execution was announced by local television, there have no signs of violence in Baghdad. The government did not impose a curfew as it had done on 5 November, the day when one of the trials of the ex-dictator ended in a death sentence for the killing of 148 Shiites who were arrested in 1982 in connection with an assassination attempt against Saddam. The sentence was confirmed by an appeals court on 26 December and had to be executed within 30 days.

Saddam was also on trial for the killing of tens of thousands of Kurds in 1988 in the Anfal campaign.

Saddam Hussein was executed Saturday, officials said, the 69-year-old former strongman mounting the gallows calmly and accepting his fate with a last defiant warning.

"He said 'I hope you will be united, and I warn you not to trust the Iranian coalition, because they are dangerous'. He said he was not afraid of anyone," Judge Moneer Haddad, who witnessed Saddam's execution for crimes against humanity, told AFP.

Saddam's taunt will be interpreted as a sideswipe at Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Shiite-led ruling coalition, which many Iraqi Sunnis accuse of being a front for Iranian influence.

Another witness, National Security Adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, told state television the former strongman made no attempt to resist his executioners, as he was led to the noose with his hands bound behind him.

Neither official, members of a small group of dignitaries who formally witnessed the execution, would say exactly where the hanging took place except that it was outside Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone.

Rubaie said the Saddam's American jailers had handed him over to Iraqi officials and that there had been no US personnel in the building as the trapdoor dropped and the dictator's life was ended.

"We hope this great day will be a day for national unity and for the liberation of the Iraqi people," Rubaie told Al-Arabiya television, adding that the whole procedure had been filmed.

"Whether to screen it now or later is up to political leaders because this is a sensitive issue and we do not want to excite some of our people," he said, amid mounting sectarian tension.

"This issue is about establishing justice. I look to thousands of orphans and widows in Halabja, and the war with Iran and the invasion of Kuwait," he said, referring to some of Saddam's best known atrocities.

According to the AP, a crowd of about 200 Iraqi-Americans cheered outside a Dearborn mosque, chanting "Now there's peace, Saddam is dead" in English and Arabic.

They danced, sang, some dropping to their knees and crying, the AP reported.

Many draped Iraqi and American flags on their shoulders, heads, and car hoods.

The city is home to one of the largest communities of Muslims in America.



In US,President Bush said in a statement issued from his ranch in Texas that bringing Saddam to justice "is an important milestone on Iraq's course to becoming a democracy that can govern, sustain and defend itself, and be an ally in the war on terror."

He said that the execution marks the "end of a difficult year for the Iraqi people and for our troops" and cautioned that Saddam's death will not halt the violence in Iraq.

President. Bush, who was asleep at his Texas ranch when the hanging was carried out in Baghdad, said Saddam had received the kind of justice he denied his victims.

The fear that the hanging of the ex-ruler will bring “nothing good for the country” is widespread among Iraqi Christians in Europe too. They are convinced that even if this does not come about immediately, “sooner or later Saddam’s death will be avenged”.

Some key US allies expressed discomfort at the execution, which was roundly condemned by major human rights groups who argued that Saddam's trial had been deeply flawed.

Russia, which opposed the March 20, 2003 invasion to oust the dictator, and the Vatican both expressed regret at the hanging which some Muslim leaders said would exacerbate the violence in Iraq.

Britain, the main US ally in Iraq, said Saddam had been "held to account" but reiterated its opposition to the use of the death penalty, as did Australia, another key supporter of the US invasion.

British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett welcomed the fact that Saddam had been tried by an Iraqi court "for at least some of the appalling crimes" he committed against the Iraqi people.

"The British government does not support the use of the death penalty, in Iraq or anywhere else," she added Saturday.

Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander Downer voiced similar reservations but also stressed the need to respect the right of sovereign states to pass judgement relating to crimes committed against their people.

"He has been brought to justice, following a process of fair trial and appeal something he denied to countless thousands of victims of his regime," Downer said.

Bush hammered home the same point, saying fair trials had been "unimaginable" under Saddam's rule.

"Bringing Saddam Hussein to justice will not end the violence in Iraq, but it is an important milestone on Iraq's course to becoming a democracy that can govern, sustain, and defend itself," he said.

Iran, the influential neighbour of Iraq and arch-foe of the US administration, also welcomed the news.

"The execution verdict of the court that tried Saddam has made thousands of Iranian, Iraqi and Kuwaiti victims happy," said foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini.

Saddam Hussein was reviled in Iran for a 1980 attack that sparked an eight-year war that cost around one million lives on both sides.

And no tears were shed in Kuwait, which Saddam invaded in 1990.

"Saddam was an enemy to the Iraqi people and the Islamic nation," said acting Kuwaiti Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber al-Mubarak al-Sabah.

Israel, a strong US ally and enemy of Saddam, also hailed the hanging, with a high-ranking Israeli official declaring: "Justice has been done."

But there was also condemnation of the execution.

Russia's foreign ministry expressed regret, saying that international calls for clemency had been ignored.

"Unfortunately, the many appeals from representatives of various countries and international organisations for Iraq's authorities to hold back from capital punishment were not heard," a ministry spokesman was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.

India, which had warm ties with the Saddam regime, said it was "disappointed" by the execution, while Pakistan called it a "sad event".

The ruling Hamas movement in the Palestinian territories said Saddam was a prisoner of war and described his hanging as an act of "political assassination" that flouted international laws.

Libya declared three days of national mourning after the execution.

Malaysia, a leading Muslim nation, warned the execution of Saddam could trigger more bloodshed.

"A lot of people, the international community generally, are not in favour of the hanging and question the due process that took place," Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar, whose country is current chair of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, told AFP.

Outside of Britain, European reaction, led by the European Union (EU), focused on opposition to the use of capital punishment.

"The European Union has been consistently against the use of the death penalty," Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, told AFP.

"It could also prove to be divisive for the future of Iraq especially since there has been serious criticism of the way the trial was conducted," Tuomioja said.

France, a high profile opponent of the Iraq invasion at the United Nations, called on Iraqis to "look towards the future" and work towards reconciliation and national unity.

"Now more than ever, the objective should be a return to full sovereignty and stability in Iraq," the French foreign ministry said in a statement.

German junior foreign minister Gernot Erler said that his country "understood" the feelings of the victims of Saddam's brutal regime but remained opposed to capital punishment.

Among other major powers, Japan said it respected Iraq's decision to carry out the execution.

"Japan hopes Iraq will turn into a stable country and will continue supporting the country together with the international community," Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was quoted by Kyodo News as saying.

The Vatican saw the hanging as "tragic news", Vatican spokesman Frederico Lombardi said.

"There is a risk that it feeds the spirit of vengeance and plants the seeds for fresh violence," he said

The Iraqi church did not comment about the execution of the former ruler, preferring to urge the world once again to “pray for the country, so sorely tired”. Iraqis abroad were waiting for the televised execution but they fear “certain revenge from the supporters of a president who was always seen as a god”.

“Continue to pray for peace across the world and today especially in Iraq.” This is the call of the auxiliary bishop of the Chaldeans in Baghdad, Mgr Shlemon Warduni, a few hours after the capital execution of Saddam Hussein. Beyond the political repercussions of this death, the bishop took care to stress that what matters most to the Church at this time is “necessary respect for the human person, as God created him”. Mgr Warduni once again urged “the world to pray for the common good but especially that of Iraq that is so sorely tried today.”

Malaysia respects the decision to execute former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein but has reservations that his death may trigger more serious conflict, said Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak on Saturday.




Saddam Hussein – Chronology

Despite promises from Iraqi and U.S. leaders that 2006 would bring improvement, Iraqis have suffered through the worst year in living memory, facing violence, fragmentation and a disintegrated economy.

A year back Iraqis were promised that 2006 would be the fresh beginning of a, prosperous, democratic and unified Iraq. Through an elected parliament and a unity government, they would find peace, and start rebuilding a country torn apart by the U.S.-backed UN sanctions and then the U.S.-led invasion and occupation.

But everyone agrees that the situation now is worse than ever. Leaders in Iraq disagree only to the extent they blame one another for the collapse in security that has led to worsened services and living conditions.

Hanged this morning at dawn, Saddam Hussein dominated the Iraqi scene for nearly 25 years, ruling with an iron fist, massacres against the country’s ethnic and religious groups and the elimination of his political adversaries. We list the significant dates in his life.


April 28, 1937 – Born in the poor al-Awja village near Tikrit, 150 km north of Baghdad. His stepfather used to beat him often when he was a child.


October 1956 - Joins uprising against pro-British monarchy and becomes a militant of the Baath (“Rebirth”) Party.


October 1959 - A year after the overthrow of the monarchy, takes part in a failed attempt to kill Prime Minister Abdel-Karim Kassem. Flees abroad and lives in exile in Cairo for four years.

February 1963 - Returns to Baghdad when the Baath Party seizes power in a coup. Nine months later Baathists are overthrown and he is caught and jailed. Elected deputy secretary-general of the party while in prison.

July 1968 - Saddam helps plot the coup that puts the Baath Party back in power, deposing President Abdul-Rahman Aref. He is now the party’s no.2 after General Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr.


March 1975 - As vice-president of the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), he signs an agreement with the Shah of Persia to ends support for an Iraqi Kurdish revolt, causing its collapse.

July 16, 1979 - Takes power after President Ahmed Hassan al -Bakr steps aside. He assumes the posts of prime minister, president of the RCC and supreme commander of the armed forces. Accuses hundreds of top politicians of the Baath party of betrayal and has them executed. During his 30 years of power, his name will feature in mosques, airports, neighbourhoods and cities. In schools, songs extolling him will be taught. His statues will be placed at the entrance of every village and his photo put up in every public office and private home.


September 22, 1980 – Self-styled leader of the Arab world, he launches war on the Iran of the Islamic Revolution. It will last eight years, claiming 200,000 lives and leaving hundreds of thousands injured.

March 16, 1988 - Iraqi forces launch chemical attack on Kurdish town of Halabja, killing about 5,000 people.

August 20, 1988 - A ceasefire is officially declared in the Iran-Iraq war. The campaign against Kurds continues. The war has emptied state coffers and leaves a debt of more than 70 billion dollars owed to other Arab states. Saddam starts thinking about how he can increase oil income.

August 2, 1990 - Launches invasion of and annexes Kuwait, accusing it of keeping oil prices down. The UN Security Council decides to impose sanctions on Iraq, which remain in force even after Saddam is thrown out of Kuwait, leading to the collapse of the economy and internal power struggles.

January 17, 1991 – The United States and other countries commence air attacks on Iraq and occupied Kuwait. The “Gulf War” ends on 28 February with the eviction of Iraqi forces from Kuwait. The bombardments devastate the infrastructure of the country and massacre frontline Iraqi troops (it is estimated that 150,000 were killed in a few weeks). While retreating, the soldiers set fire to oil wells causing an ecological disaster. Encouraged by the defeat of the army, Shiites revolt in southern Iraq. But western powers do not intervene and Saddam suppresses the uprising. Then he attacks the Kurd rebels in the north, forcing millions of people to flee to the freezing mountains. Western forces intervene to protect the fugitives through air controls that prevent the soldiers’ advance.


August 1995 – The husbands of his two younger daughters leave and go into exile. Six months later they accept an amnesty and return to Iraq. Within days, their wives divorce them and both are killed in a shootout.


October 15, 1995 - Saddam wins a presidential referendum and is elected unopposed with more than 99% of the vote.

2000 – Newly elected US president George W. Bush steps up pressure against Saddam. Washington calls more and more persistently for “regime change”. After the attack of 11 September 2001, Iraq will be included among the “States scoundrel”.


October 15, 2002 – New presidential election: official results show Saddam wins 100% of votes.

November 2002 – UN inspectors return to Iraq to search for banned weapons. The country destroys some missiles and says it has neutralised anthrax reserves. Inspector Hans Blix concludes that Iraq has collaborated and that there is no evidence of new armament programmes but he fails to convince the United States and Great Britain.

December 7, 2002 - Saddam apologises for invasion of Kuwait but blames the country’s government. Kuwait rejects the apology.

February 2003 - In first interview in more than a decade, Saddam denies Baghdad has any banned weapons or links to al Qaeda.

March 20, 2003 – The forces of the United States and other countries launch war against Iraq.

April 9, 2003 – US forces take Baghdad and put an end to Saddam's three-decade rule. The dictator disappears.


Mid East Saddam Hussein Iraq US Malaysia Europe

World laughing at US: Mahathir

THE US has become an international laughing stock because of Iraq, and Australia is suffering for its relationship with America, former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad has said.
"America has lost," he said yesterday. "It used to be a world power. It is no longer a world power."

In an exclusive interview with The Weekend Australian in his office near Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia's longest-serving prime minister said: "The whole world is laughing at America, at the stupidity of the decisions they made and at the refusal to recognise the situation."

He described US President George W.Bush as being in "total self-denial".

Dr Mahathir also said Australia suffered from its close association with Mr Bush's policies.

He criticised Australia for having a mentality that was too European, always telling people how to behave and what was right and wrong.

Dr Mahathir accused the Bush administration of having only a shallow knowledge of the Middle East and hypocrisy about Middle Eastern democracy.

"In Palestine, because they didn't like Hamas, because Hamas won, they didn't want to recognise them, thus negating the whole idea of democracy."

Dr Mahathir retired as prime minister in 2003 having served 22 years in office and overseen sustained economic growth in Malaysia.

However, his later years in office were marked by increasingly sharp criticism of Washington and Australia. He had celebrated run-ins with three Australian prime ministers: Bob Hawke, over the Malaysian decision to execute two convicted Australian drug traffickers; Paul Keating, over APEC and the nature of Asian regionalism; and John Howard, over the question of whether Australia was the US's deputy sheriff in Asia.

Saddam: the final hours of a tyrant

Saddam Hussein's death warrant was signed last night. It happened as the nightly curfew brought Baghdad, the city where he exercised supreme power over Iraq for a quarter of a century, to a standstill. The leader who launched two disastrous wars that reshaped the politics of the Middle East and ruined his country waited to be hanged by the Iraqi authorities who had replaced him.

Saddam's principal lawyer, Khalil al-Dulaimi, said US officials who have been holding him at Fort Cropper near the airport outside Baghdad had asked him to pick up Saddam's possessions and those of his half-brother, Barzan al-Tikriti, also facing execution. His two other half- brothers, Watban and Sabawi, visited him on Thursday and he gave them his will.

The trial of Saddam probably changed few minds. The Sunni Arab community sympathised with him as one of their own. The Kurds, so long his chief victims, wanted him to hang. The Shia agreed, though many reflect wryly that their lives had been safer under his rule.

For half a century Saddam's enemies have been trying to kill him. Had they succeeded 10, 20 or 30 years ago the history of Iraq, the Middle East and the world might have been different. But his death comes too late. The violence he played his part in is out of control. His execution may make little difference.

It should have been a historic opportunity. For the first time since the end of the Second World War, a tyrant and his henchmen were being put on trial for crimes against humanity by a special domestic court.

Yet the first trial against Saddam Hussein, in which he was charged with human rights violations dating back to 1982, was so rife with defects that the guilty verdict was unsound, according to Human Rights Watch.

In a 97-page report on a trial which centred on the execution of almost 150 Shia Muslims and the arrest of 1,500 in Dujail, Human Rights Watch identified the following flaws:

LACK OF PREPAREDNESS

The court was manifestly unprepared for such a legally and factually challenging case when the trial began on 19 October 2005. Despite having US advisers, the judges and lawyers were insufficiently trained and were unprepared for the hostile environment. The level of expertise of the Iraqi trial judges, administrators, prosecutors and defence lawyers was "not sufficient to fairly and effectively try crimes of this magnitude". The prosecution and investigative judges appeared unfamiliar with the elements of proof required to establish individual criminal responsibility under international criminal law. Much documentation was not in readable form.

FAILURE TO PROTECT WITNESSES AND DEFENCE LAWYERS

Three defence lawyers, including one who was acting for Saddam himself, were killed during the trial, and others were attacked by gunmen. During the televised proceedings of the opening session, while only the faces of the chief prosecutor and presiding judge were shown from among the prosecuting team, all of the defence lawyers were visible. The following day, one of the defence team, Sadoun al-Janabi, was kidnapped and shot dead. Three weeks later, Adel al-Zubeidi and Thamer al-Khuza'i, defence counsel for the defendants Taha Yassin Ramadan and Barzan al-Tikriti, were attacked by gunmen and Mr Zubeidi was killed.

Human Rights Watch said that until Mr Janabi's assassination there appeared to have been no specific proposals to ensure the safety of the defence team. They were effectively left with only one option: to relocate their families outside Iraq at their own cost and return to Iraq for the trial sessions.

The trial organisers should have been better prepared because five people working for the court were killed before the opening session. There was also no systematic protection programme for witnesses once they had appeared in court.

POLITICAL INTERFERENCE

The report found that the Iraqi High Tribunal was "undermined from the outset" by Iraqi government actions that threatened the court's independence and perceived impartiality.

Its standing was further undermined by fierce public criticism of the court and its judges by senior government officials which started as soon as the trial began. Its reputation also suffered when MPs denounced the presiding judge, Rizgar Amin, and demanded his resignation. The judge, who was a Kurd, resigned last January.

VIOLATIONS OF DEFENDANTS' RIGHTS

There were also violations of the defendants' right to confront witnesses, according to Human Rights Watch. And it denounced the tendency by the prosecution to engage in "trial by ambush" in which incriminating documents were not disclosed to the defence until the day that they were to be used in court.

The tortured voices of Saddam's victims

* Ahmed Hassan Mohammed, a survivor of Dujail, and among the few Iraqis willing to testify at Saddam's trial without anonymity:

"There were mass arrests. Women and men. Even if a child was a day old they used to tell his parents, 'Bring him with you'. They were martyrs I knew. I had a brother ... He was a student, middle school. He was born in 1965. They took him to interrogation. They electrocuted him; they tortured him by electric shock and they would beat him before my father, who was born 1905. They would ask him where your brothers are. And he had no idea. The mask they put on my face was falling because I was so little. They were torturing women in front of me. It's OK if they torture me or my brothers. But why do you take my mother and sisters?"

* An anonymous Kuwaiti man after Kuwait was liberated in 1991:

"The Iraqis said all those at prayer would be taken away - kidnapped - and 11 men stayed in the mosque and refused to go. So they brought them here, blindfolded them, made them stand with their backs to the wall and shot them in the face. I had two neighbours who the Iraqis thought were in the resistance. So they pushed them into drains, closed the grille, poured petrol on them and set them on fire. "

* Karwan Abdallah Tawfiq, Kurdish survivor of a chemical gas attack during Saddam's Anfal campaign. He testified at Saddam's genocide trial:

"I saw with my own eyes all those broken limbs. After two months I regained consciousness. I was disoriented. After that, I found myself with friends at the Imam Khomeini hospital at Isfahan in Iran. I used to feel as if I was drunk the whole time. I spent six months in the hospital, and I was unable to see. Even my children are scared to see my eyes when I remove the glasses."

* Dr Hussein Shahristani, former chief scientific adviser to Saddam's Iraqi Atomic Energy Organisation and a Shia Muslim. Arrested in December 1979, he was imprisoned and tortured in Abu Ghraib for 11 years before escaping in the first Gulf War after the Americans bombed the prison. He was touted as a possible post-Saddam prime minister.

"The torture techniques in Baghdad were routine and varied in severity. The electric shocks could be everywhere. But sometimes they would burn people on the genitals and go on burning until they were completely burnt off. They did the same with toes. They sometimes beat people with iron on the stomach and the chest. I saw one man and they had used an iron on his stomach. They used drills and made holes in bones, arms and legs. I saw an officer, Naqib Hamid; they dissolved his feet in acid. They would put sulphuric acid in a tub. They would take a man and start by dissolving his hands. The founder of the Dawa party, Abdul Saheb Khail, was totally dissolved."


The rise and fall of Iraq's dictator

* 28 April 1937: Saddam Hussein is born to a peasant family near Tikrit, north of Baghdad.

* 7 October, 1959: Joins assassination squad that wounds Iraq's military leader, Gen Abdel-Karim Kassem. Wounded in the leg, Saddam flees Iraq for Syria and Egypt.

* 1964-1966: Jailed for participation in Baath Party. Escapes to become leading party member.

* 17 July 1968: Saddam's cousin becomes Iraqi president.

* 15 July 1979: Takes power from his cousin as president of Iraq.

* 22 Sept 1980: Backed by the West, orders troops to invade Iran. The eight-year war, in which Iraq uses nerve gas against Iranians, kills hundreds of thousands on both sides.

* 8 July 1982: Survives assassination attempt. Purges town of Dujail; 150 residents executed on Saddam's orders.

* 28 March 1988: Uses chemical weapons against Kurdish town of Halabja in northern Iraq, killing 5,000 civilians.

* 2 August 1990: Iraq invades Kuwait.

* 17 January 1991: US coalition launches the Gulf War.

* 20 February 1996: Saddam orders killing of two sons-in-law who had defected to Jordan.

* December 1996: Saddam's son and heir, Uday, wounded in assassination attempt.

* 12 September 2002: President Bush calls on UN to confront Iraq - or stand aside as the US and like-minded nations act.

* March 20, 2003: US-led forces invade Iraq. "Shock and awe" bombardment followed by ground invasion.

* 9 April 2003: US forces enter central Baghdad.

* 13 December, 2003: Saddam captured by US forces.

* 19 October 2005: Saddam appears in court charged with crimes against humanity for Dujail massacre.

* 21 August 2006: Second trial of Saddam opens. He is charged with genocide and war crimes against the Kurds.

* 5 November 2006: Saddam sentenced to death by hanging. His half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, a former chief judge, are also sentenced to death.

* 26 December 2006: Conviction upheld by appeals court.
(Source:The Independent)


Mid East Saddam Mahathir US

Making of a martyr

The meaningless execution of a tyrant

Saddam's hanging, when it comes, will produce neither universal relief nor outrage

There won't be many people who mourn Saddam Hussein's imminent death - if he hasn't been executed already - any more than there were many who mourned the death of Slobodan Milosevic this year. They were both tyrants of the worst sort, ruling by fear and the word of the informant. Both were responsible for war on their neighbours as well as oppression of their own people.

The Serbian dictator managed at least to cheat the judge of the international court in The Hague by passing away from natural courses. Saddam Hussein hasn't managed that. But, like Milosevic, he has been able to turn what was meant to be a grand cathartic ceremony of closure and reconciliation into a desultory almost meaningless damp squib of a trial. His hanging, when it comes, discreetly and without ceremony, will produce neither a sense of universal relief nor outrage. It will simply happen, to be announced after the event, an event out of time and even place

The fall of the regime, the trial of a tyrant, the imposition of a new order were all part of a vision that was never grounded in the facts of Iraq, because the facts on the ground were secondary to the purpose. Had it been otherwise, there would have been a proper post-invasion plan.

To those who still claim that the invasion was right, because it removed a tyrant, one has this simple question: "Did we do it to make ourselves feel better or to make things better for the Iraqis?" For, if we ever thought they were one and the same thing, then we have been cruelly deceiving ourselves and even more cruelly deceiving them.

Saddam has said in a letter he is willing to sacrifice himself for the Iraqi people and would die as a martyr. He called on all Iraqis to unite against the common enemy, the US.

Iraqi and human rights activist Khalid Issa Taha, chairman of Lawyers Without Borders and vice president of the UK Iraqi Lawyers Association, said in an in interview with Adnkronos International (AKI) he believes ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein deserves capital punishment but that the trial which led to the death sentence was unfair.

Q: Do you think the ruling is fair?

A: No doubt Saddam Hussain has done a lot of things for which he should be punished. I do not agree with the formalities of the trial...These mistakes were done by the court and attorneys of law, allowing people, lawyers and judges and human right organization to criticize the trial. Honestly, they should not have done these mistakes to enable people to criticize the decision. This discourages justice. In 1959, I had asked the Iraqi Court to implement the death sentence of Saddam Hussain after he was accused of killing his own cousin to get all the power. Even this crime alone convinced me that he deserved the death sentence.

Q: Do you think that they will execute him within 30 days as stipulated by law?

A: If they hang him they will make a fatal mistake. They will make him a hero in front of other people. And they will make way for another civil war. This civil war will likely hurt only Iraqis again. So I believe they will pretend he is sick in jail and they will poison him.

Q: What do you think would be fair?

A: In my opinion they should re-try Saddam Hussain with a more independent court which is not influenced by the government. That will give judges a better quality, not fanatical, but fair and neutral... In my opinion he is a first class criminal because he did not defend Iraq when American troops invaded the country. He escaped like a frightened rabbit and they caught him in a hole.

Secular Baathists desperately needed charismatic leader or idea, and the US provided both by allowing execution of Saddam. Besides not invading Iraq in the first place, the US had several options. One, bring Saddam to the US as a POW and detain for years, questioning him on many interesting issues. To fear retaliation for holding Saddam is ridiculous because his execution would provide Baathists with equally good reason to inflict damage on the US citizens worldwide. America could hold Saddam at Guantanamo. Two, commit him to jail in Iraq and keep him in the conditions so bad (normal there) that he would die soon or come out totally disabled. Three, let the Iranians catch him. Four, give him to the Kuwaitis; let the cowards handle their enemy. Five, poison or otherwise kill him inconspicuously. Six, let him disappear or keep him secretly, possibly in Israel.

Instead, the US allowed secular scoundrel Saddam, despised by Muslims everywhere, to become a religious martyr. His farewell letter to Iraqi people would make it into the history: a call both for humbleness and unrelenting struggle against heretic invaders.

Saddam’s trial was predictably a sham. Genocide? America already caused more civilian deaths in Iraq by ruining the police state. American-sponsored civil war in Afghanistan killed many more people than did Saddam. Gassing of Kurds? That was Iran’s job; Iraq had no cyanogen chloride. Massacre of Shiites at Dujail? Here is the true story.

Dujail was a hotbed of Shiite insurgence in Iraq. During the war with Iran, Shiites in Dujail and elsewhere supported Iran – a state treason. Still, Saddam came to Dujail in 1982 to win its inhabitants peacefully. He was fired upon. The would-be assassin was not a lone gun: the ensuing fight between Saddam’s guards and the inhabitants lasted hours. The population was heavily armed. In reprisal, Saddam’s forces killed only about 150 men, an extremely low figure by wartime norms of any country and insignificantly minuscule by the standards of Muslim states. Some men were 13-year-old – boys by the Western notions, but grown-up soldiers in Iraq. Iran, too, extensively conscripted teenagers during the war. Population of Dujail – wartime enemy collaborators – was interned in camps. Some were arrested. That is not a crime against humanity. Time would come when the US would see Saddam’s killing of Shiites as favor. Now, Sunnis will correctly see the Iraqi Shiite court as biased against Saddam, and Americans oddly cooperating with pro-Iranian Shiites.

It is hard to enforce justice in a place where you don’t understand right from left.


Opinion Mid East Saddam Hussein Iraq

Facing hangman, Saddam offers sacrifice

"Here I offer myself in sacrifice. If God almighty wishes, it (my soul) will take me where he orders to be with the martyrs," Saddam said in the hand-written letter obtained from his defence lawyers in Jordan after it was posted on a website.

"If my soul goes down this path (of martyrdom) it will face God in serenity."

In a farewell letter to the Iraqi people, Saddam Hussein urged his countrymen not to hate the people of the countries that toppled his regime nearly four years ago and said he was offering "my soul to God as a sacrifice."

The letter was posted on a website Wednesday, a day after Iraq's highest court upheld his death sentence and ordered him hanged within 30 days. A top government official, meanwhile, said Saddam's execution could proceed without the approval of Iraq's president, meaning there were no more legal obstacles to sending the deposed dictator to the gallows.

Speculation on the streets ranged from a swift execution within days, conducted in secret and announced only after the fact, to a public execution broadcast on television -- though few believed the latter was likely.

The Iraqi High Tribunal appeals court on Tuesday upheld Saddam's death sentence imposed for crimes against humanity during his 24-year rule.

"Our job is done and now it is in the hand of the executive authority. They (the government) have the right to choose the date starting from tomorrow up to 30 days," the head of the court, Aref Abdul-Razzaq al-Shahin, said on Tuesday.

But the government refused repeated requests for comment and declined to give any indication on when and how it was going to execute Saddam, overthrown by a U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

Human rights group Amnesty International said the Appeal Court ruling came at the end of a flawed trial that had lacked independence from political interference.

"Amnesty International is very disappointed about this decision," a spokeswoman for the human rights organization said.

"We are against the death penalty as a matter of principle but particularly in this case because it comes after a flawed trial."

The nine-judge appellate court also upheld death sentences against Saddam's half-brother, Barzan al-Tikriti, and former judge Awad al-Bander, for their part in the incident.

The court recommended toughening the sentence on former Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan, who had been sentenced to life in prison over Dujail, saying he should also be executed.

Meanwhile, The Baath Party, the political movement that ruled Iraq during the Saddam Hussein era, is warning there will be "grave consequences" if former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein is executed.

Saying it would hold the United States responsible, a message appeared on al-basrah.net Tuesday that read: "The Baath and the resistance are determined to retaliate in all ways and all places that hurt America and its interests if it commits this crime."

If the execution is carried out, the largely Sunni-Arab Baathists said they also will retaliate against members of the Iraqi High Tribunal.

And they vowed a complete shut-down of peace negotiations between the Baathists and coalition forces.

The Baathists have been operating as part of the insurgency against the U.S. and its allies since Hussein's regime fell in 2003.

The Baathist message went on to call Hussein's execution a "most dangerous red line" that the Bush administration shouldn't cross.

"The entire world knows that the final decision is in the hands of the American administration and not the agent government in Baghdad," the message said.

The execution "will make later negotiations between the resistance and the Baathists" and the U.S. "impossible." It would further embolden and strengthen the resistance, the message warned.

The Baathists also issued a warning to Iran, which is regarded as a key supporter of Iraq's Shiite-led government.

The Baathists believe that the government and Iran are behind sectarian killings of Sunni Arabs.

The Baathists are asking Iran's "real leader" -- a reference to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei -- "to be rational and study this matter and not to spill more Iraqi blood, because our retaliation will be in the heart of Iran and impact its leadership."

The Baathists also warned that there will be "no safe place" for Iraqi High Tribunal jurists and those who protect them, calling them "traitors" and "tools for the occupation."

Saddam Hussein's lawyer says the U.S. should not hand the former dictator over to Iraq for execution.

Speaking from Jordan, Khalil al-Dulaimi also called on international organizations, including the UN, to prevent the U.S. from transferring Saddam to Iraqi custody.

The lawyer called Saddam a prisoner of war. He said war prisoners are not to be handed over to their enemies.

On Tuesday, an Iraqi appeals court said Saddam's death sentence for the killing of 148 Shi'ites should be carried out within 30 days.

Saddam is currently being held at a U.S. prison near Baghdad International Airport.

Meanwhile, a top Vatican official has criticized the death sentence.

In a newspaper interview (Republicca) published Thursday, Cardinal Renato Martino said executing Saddam would be like punishing "a crime with a crime."

He said capital punishment goes against the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.

Iraqi officials have not commented on when the execution will take place. It is also unclear whether President Jalal Talabani needs to sign off on the execution warrant.

Last month, an Iraqi court sentenced Saddam to hang for ordering the killing of 148 Shi'ite Muslims in the town of Dujail in 1982.

Saddam also is being tried separately on charges of genocide for a 1988 military campaign (Anfal) against the Kurdish region of northern Iraq. Prosecutors say 180,000 Kurds were killed in that campaign.

(Some information for this post was excerpted from : Newsvine,Reuter,Canoe News,The Age and CNN)


Iraq Mid East Saddam Hussein