‘Long live Iraq! Long live the Iraqi people! Death to the occupiers! Death to Israel! Death to the traitors!’ shouted a defiant Iraqi President Saddam Hussein yesterday as he was sentenced to death.
The puppet court found Saddam guilty over the deaths that took place in the village of of Dujail, north of Baghdad in 1982, after an attempt to assassinate him there.
Before pronouncing sentence, Judge Rauf Rasheed Abdel Rahman ordered the deposed Iraqi president to stand.
Saddam refused, saying, ‘I will sit.’
‘Make him stand,’ said the judge.
Court bailiffs hauled him to his feet. While Rahman declared: ‘The highest penalty should be implemented,’ adding, ‘He should suffer the death penalty by hanging,’ Saddam shouted ‘Long live Iraq! Death to the traitors!’ brandishing a copy of the Koran in the air.
Saddam continued shouting defiantly as he was led away from the dock.
Saddam’s half-brother and ex-intelligence chief Barzan al-Tikriti was also sentenced to death, as was Awad Ahmed al-Bandar, who was chairman of the Revolutionary Court in 1982.
All three have lodged appeals. These are expected to last one month.
Amnesty International condemned the trial as ‘a shabby affair, marred by serious flaws’.
Amnesty added that it was ‘deeply flawed and unfair’, charging that ‘political interference undermined the independence and impartiality of the court’.
Saddam’s defence team said he had expected to be sentenced to death as the court ‘had been manipulated’ but ‘his morale is high’.
Lawyer Ahmad Siddiq said: ‘I was among 12 defence lawyers who met Saddam Hussein for four hours on Saturday afternoon. His morale was very high; it was made of steel.’
In a number of areas in Baghdad, fighting was reported between insurgents and Iraqi puppet forces and US troops immediately after the verdict was announced.
Thousands of people marched in Saddam’s home town of Tikrit, shouting ‘Saddam we will avenge you!’
Sheikh Al-Nadawi, the head of the Baigat group of tribes, said: ‘Saddam lived a hero and will die as a hero. The court is a historical farce.’
