Topic: Saddam To the Gallows

[Shit machine gun]

So Saddam is gonna hang.  Do you think it's enough?

Saddam Hussein and 2 co-defendants sentenced to hang for Dujail killings
By STEVEN R. HURST AND HAMZA HENDAWI

   
Charges and sentences in the trial of Saddam Hussein at a glance
   
Saddam's death sentence sparks Sunni anger
   
Iraqi government closes Sunni television stations for reports on Saddam's trial

BAGHDAD (AP) - An Iraqi court on Sunday sentenced Saddam Hussein to the gallows for crimes against humanity, convicting the former dictator and six subordinates for one nearly quarter-century-old case of violent suppression in this land of long memories, deep grudges and sectarian slaughter.

Shiites and Kurds, who had been tormented and killed in the tens of thousands under Saddam's iron rule, erupted in celebration but looked ahead fearfully for a potential backlash from the Sunni insurgency that some believe could be a final shove into all-out civil war.

Saddam trembled and shouted "God is great" when the hawk-faced chief judge, Raouf Abdul-Rahman, declared the former leader guilty and sentenced him to hang.

Televised, the trial was watched throughout Iraq and the Middle East as much for theatre as for substance. Saddam was ejected from the courtroom repeatedly for his political harangues, and his half brother and co-defendant, Barzan Ibrahim, once showed up in long underwear and sat with his back to the judges.

The nine-month trial had inflamed the country, and three defence lawyers and a witness were murdered in the course of its 39 sessions.

"Long live the people and death to their enemies. Long live the glorious nation, and death to its enemies!" Saddam cried out after the verdict, before bailiffs took his arms and walked the once all-powerful leader from the courtroom. There was a hint of a smile on Saddam's face.
   

With justice for Saddam's crimes done, the U.S.-backed Shiite prime minister called for reconciliation and delivered the most eloquent speech of his five months in office.

"The verdict placed on the heads of the former regime does not represent a verdict for any one person. It is a verdict on a whole dark era that was unmatched in Iraq's history," Nouri al-Maliki said.

The White House praised the Iraqi judicial system and denied the U.S. had been "scheming" to have the historic verdict announced two days before American midterm elections, widely seen as a referendum on the U.S. administration's policy in Iraq.

President George W. Bush called the verdict "a milestone in the Iraqi people's efforts to replace the rule of a tyrant with the rule of law."

"It's a major achievement for Iraq's young democracy and its constitutional government," the president said.

"Today, the victims of this regime have received a measure of the justice which many thought would never come," he added.

But symbolic of the split between the United States and many of its traditional allies over the Iraq war, many countries voiced opposition to the death sentences in the case, including France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden. A leading Italian opposition figure called on the continent to press for Saddam's sentence to be commuted to life imprisonment.

Lost in the drama of Sunday's death sentence was any mention of the failed search for the alleged weapons of mass destruction that Bush said led the United States to invade and occupy Iraq in March 2003.

Saddam was found hiding with an unfired pistol in a hole in the ground near his home village north of Baghdad in December 2003, eight months after he fled the capital ahead of advancing American troops.

Twenty-two months later, he went on trial for ordering the torture and murder of nearly 150 Shiites from the city of Dujail. Saddam said those who were killed had been found guilty in a legitimate Iraqi court for trying to assassinate him in 1982.

Ibrahim, Saddam's half brother and intelligence chief during the Dujail killings, was sentenced to join the former leader on the gallows, as was Awad Hamed al-Bandar, head of Iraq's Revolutionary Court, which issued the death sentences against the Dujail residents.

Iraq's former vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan was convicted of premeditated murder and sentenced to life in prison.

Three defendants were given up to 15 years in prison for torture and premeditated murder. Abdullah Kazim Ruwayyid and his son, Mizhar Abdullah Ruwayyid, were party officials in Dujail, along with Ali Dayih Ali. They were believed responsible for the Dujail arrests.

A local Baath party official Mohammed Azawi Ali, was acquitted for lack of evidence.

In the streets of Dujail, a Tigris River city of 84,000, people celebrated and burned pictures of their former tormentor as the verdict was read. In Baghdad, the Shiite bastion of Sadr City exploded in jubilation.

But in Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, not far from Dujail, 1,000 people defied the curfew and carried pictures of the city's favourite son through the streets. Some declared the court a product of the U.S. "occupation forces" and condemned the verdict. Policemen wept in the streets.

"By our souls, by our blood we sacrifice for you, Saddam," the Tikrit crowds chanted.

A trial envisioned to heal Iraq's deep ethnic and sectarian wounds appeared rather to have deepened the fissures.

"This government will be responsible for the consequences, with the deaths of hundreds, thousands or even hundreds of thousands, whose blood will be shed," Salih al-Mutlaq, a Sunni political leader, told Al-Arabiya satellite television.

The death sentences automatically go to a nine-judge appeals panel, which has unlimited time to review the case. If the verdicts and sentences are upheld, the executions must be carried out within 30 days.

A court official told The Associated Press that the appeals process was likely to take three to four weeks once the formal paperwork was submitted. If the verdicts are upheld, those sentenced to death would be hanged despite Saddam's second, ongoing trial for allegedly murdering thousands of Iraq's Kurdish minority.

Saddam's Sunni supporters, the bulk of the insurgency that has killed the vast majority of American troops in Iraq, could still explode in violence once an open-ended curfew is lifted in coming days.

But the former leader's chief lawyer, Khalil al-Dulaimi, told The Associated Press his client had called on Iraqis to reject violence and refrain from taking revenge on U.S. invaders.

"His message to the Iraqi people was 'Pardon and do not take revenge on the invading nations and their people,' " al-Dulaimi said.

[sohcahtoa]

I say hang em', although he deserves alot worse.

[Dump Bees]

I think he deserves worse.

Its actually ironic that Iraq and the while Middle east would be better off if he was still in power.

I seem to recall a saying about the devil you know.....

[cdnchicky]

Too bad they can only hang him once

[Djet3k]

yeah for some reasons i cant help feeling that hanging him is just lowering yourself to his level,no punishment at all and i geuss also a crime against humanity..

they should let people like him rot in missery cause of theyre own regrets somewhere in an abbandond cell. Ok also maybe "crime against humanity" but atleast it has a goal,making him regret his acctions for the rest of his misserable life, hanging him is no punishment since he wont notice it longer then 1min..

+ i would think that deffently with the exit he made in court he will seem like a hero to some who think he died for a cause?

[Shit machine gun]

They should lock him in a prison with some of the people that he mistreated.  I'm sure he'd feel a lot more pain (in the ass) before they killed him.

[smokesletsgo]

yeah he'l will be hanged because he dident get on with daddy bush. its none of the americans business what he done they shouldent of went near him i thought the reason they went to war was because of 911 and they would bring osama bin laden to justice but they dont even care about him nor are they even trying to catch him.

[trailerchick]

The CDC and a biological-sample company, the American Type Culture Collection, sent strains of all the germs Iraq used to make weapons, including anthrax, the bacteria that make botulinum toxin, and the germs that cause gas gangrene, the records show. Iraq also got samples of other deadly pathogens, including West Nile virus.

The transfers came in the 1980s, when the United States backed Iraq in its war against Iran.

An eight-year-old Senate report confirms that disease-producing and poisonous materials were exported, under U.S. government license, to Iraq from 1985 to 1988 during the Iran-Iraq war. Furthermore, the report adds, the American-exported materials were identical to microorganisms destroyed by United Nations inspectors after the Gulf War. The shipments were approved despite allegations that Saddam used biological weapons against Kurdish rebels and (according to the current official U.S. position) initiated war with Iran.

Hang Sadam? Sure. Too bad we couldn't take his suppliers to task as well.

[Huntsville_Bubbles]

Saddam should be hanged.. have bullets riddled into his deceased body and then have his arms and legs hacked off.

[Sunnyvale Shrimp]

i hope they get it wrong and tie the noose around his balls... 

[tellkyle]

Who cares if Saddam is hung?  He is a little old to make pornos any more.

[Vancouver]

I read somewhere that they found Saddam because a psychic told them where he was hiding in the foxhole. Apparently they gotta whole division of para-normal specialists. AAAND I hear they're goin that route to try to catch Osama too...

[smokesletsgo]

only problem with that is they dont want to find him he's good friends with bush dont you know

[Vancouver]

Psychic led to Saddam?
WASHINGTON: Did a clairvoyant help US commandos ferret Saddam Hussein out of his hiding place in Iraq three years ago? Celebrity psychic Uri Geller, best known for his spoon-bending antics, says the power of the paranormal led US troops to the fugitive Iraqi ex-dictator.

"You remember when they found Saddam Hussein in Iraq? A soldier walked over to a rock, lifted it and then found a trap-door and found him in there," Geller said. "Well, I know that that soldier walked over to that rock because he got information from a 'remote viewer' from the US."

Geller, who says he worked for the CIA during the Cold War, said his information came from a high-level source involved in US paranormal programmes. A military spokesman in Iraq had no immediate comment.

At the time of his capture, US commanders said a source close to the fugitive had given him up under interrogation.

[tellkyle]

During the cold war the military and the cia invested a lot of money into remote viewing.  Whether or not theres a shred of truth to the process or not, I've watched enough shows to know that its at least interesting, at most, fucking chilling.

The wiki entries weren't that great but one of the bigger people to speak on the subject is Major Ed Dames.  Now I believe he's tried to cash in, selling home remote viewing kits.  If you can find any old Art Bell transcripts or mp3's though, the guy as an interview is incredibly interesting.

[Becca]

Hang Sadam? Sure. Too bad we couldn't take his suppliers to task as well.

Yep, his suppliers are just as guilty as he was.  Geez, justice was swift on this one, eh?  Kinda makes one think of that old saying:  Dead men tell no tales.  I'm sure my tinfoil hat is really shiny, heh!

I'm sitting here watching a "South Park" episode on the Comedy Network.  It's one where Saddam is pestering Satan to get back together with him.  It was funny the first time I saw it but now it's kinda creepy.

[Ole Dirty]

Didn't him and his sons feed live prisoners through large wood chippers or something? Apparently to make room in the prisons. If you were good, they would feed you in head first so you would die quickly...If you were bad, you went in feet first....Maybe they should do the same to him.

[tan]

  was saddam actually hanged??

i just got a forward email with a link to a video that shows his hanging....i guess it was leaked by someone's cell phone... 

here's the link for curious george's like me

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=863ce7d4a3

*warning though...its an actual hanging *

[cat-dog]

That's how they do things in Iraq.. Had a friend "make" me watch the leaked video.. he laughed, I cringed..

He's a bad guy, but I don't take pleasure in watching people die

[tan]

lol i don't take pleasure either...i am still shaking...lol but fuck my curiousity always gets the best of me....i think i was more curious to see if it was real cause i don't watch much TV and had no clue he was to be hanged..lol....
but hafta admit this one wasn't half as bad as the internet leak of the american that got his head sliced off.....someone made me watch that one and i had vivid nightmares for months...to this day i still see the image of that guys face if i really think about it

no wonder i am gone mental...fuck self punishment here 

[SgtMeowsteen]

lol i don't take pleasure either...i am still shaking...lol but fuck my curiousity always gets the best of me....i think i was more curious to see if it was real cause i don't watch much TV and had no clue he was to be hanged..lol....
but hafta admit this one wasn't half as bad as the internet leak of the american that got his head sliced off.....someone made me watch that one and i had vivid nightmares for months...to this day i still see the image of that guys face if i really think about it

no wonder i am gone mental...fuck self punishment here 

 

That was a big mistake for me to have watched that too. Morbid curiosity taught me a lesson. I became sick after I watched that beheading. I regret watching that to this day. Point of shame.

[Hamilton Steele]

1) I earned 100 euro betting 2 friends before christmas there would be a leaked video.
(Tell me if anyone else is honestly surprised - this conflict is 80% media)

2) A retarded monkey with parkinson could hold a camera better.
(I would think if you were filming a man's execution you could at least keep it on the man's face)

3) The quality of the video is so bad that it's either a VHS cam or cell phone. 
(Problem with cell phone is once you try to enlarge the picture it pixilates)
(Problem with a VHS cam is the size of the equipment.)

3) In the heat of sucide bombers, insurgents and pissed off Suni's that support Sadam...
The security is so lax that some idiot can can make a souvenier. 

4) This is an execution being carried out by westeners. 
Therefore it is customary to put a hood over the prisoner before the hanging.
(Main evidence for westeners is that Sadam was hung on a muslim festival and it is against
Islamic law to do the execution on that particular day)

Good man or...
Evil man or...
Whatever...

No matter how you slice it...
There is more bullshit in this war than there is truth.
The entire video has an entire "Blair Witch Project" feel...
Just like so many other beheading, torture, etc videos comming out of Iraq.

----
Just an interesting thought...
I put Tricia Helfer's breasts on my site and people send me hate mail that its a porn site
out of a family TV show. (Battlestar Galactica)
But I could loop the Sadam hanging on my main page and all I'll get is praise.

[Cappy]

He refused the hood Ham. So they say.

[Hamilton Steele]

He refused the hood Ham. So they say.

That's only 1 of many things.
It's how this works now a days. 

If they can punch just 1 hole in something...
If they can prove 1 feable argument...
Somehow that makes everyone sympathetic to believe the entire argument is horse hockey.
They forget about the other 80% of what has been pointed out is still on the mark.

I don't believe a f*cking thing I hear or see from Iraq.
Something is going on..
Not sure what it is...
But whatever it is, we are not being told the truth.
---
Yes, Sadam was an S.O.B. and no doubt he got what he deserves.
But I want to see a ton of other people get it too.
Let's start with Darfur....
If you think Sadam was bad, the Darfur boyscouts make Sadam look like
Mother Teresa.

[Naomi]

I watched the clip on YouTube, it's so disturbing when they zoom in on his face after they dropped him.