Shi'ites want Saddam hanging shown on TV
Now can't you just bet that, that is King Georgies Proclamation.I can just see him throthing at the mouth, waiting for the ghoulish event to be televised.
Nah it won't be to provocative, as long as it is not an American being televised
By Ned Parker in Baghdad
November 08, 2006 06:53am
SHIA citizens in Iraq yesterday demanded that the execution of fallen dictator Saddam Hussein be shown live on television, as an adviser to the country's Prime Minister said the deposed president would be hanged by January.
"I don't think it will drag on beyond January of next year," said Haider al-Abadi, an MP and confidant of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
Saddam, 69, was sentenced to death on Sunday for ordering a brutal crackdown that claimed the lives of 148 Shi'ites in the village of Dujail, north of Baghdad, after he had survived a 1982 assassination attempt.
Iraqi law includes an automatic appeal for sentences of life in jail and death. A nine-judge appellate chamber will start to review Saddam's case within 30 days.
The high tribunal will forward its judicial ruling to the appellate chamber in 10 days. Then the prosecution and defence have 20 days to submit their arguments.
The appellate chamber has no deadline for issuing a decision but if it upholds the verdict, Saddam will be executed within 30 days.
Mr Abadi was confident the chamber would complete its review within a month.
"Everyone is eager to have Saddam executed ... It is important that we make these people supporting him feel there is no hope (that he will come back) so the killings and the bombings stop," he said.
An official said Saddam's execution would probably take place inside an Iraqi prison in the presence of government officials and private citizens whose families suffered under his reign.
But Saddam's regime is said to have executed more than 300,000 people, and the prospect of him walking to the gallows in private caused people to seethe in Baghdad's Shia bastion, Sadr City.
Iraqis in this slum of 2.5million people, the power base for the fundamentalist cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, said they wanted Saddam's hanging to be televised or carried out in a city square.
"We want him to be executed in Firdoos Square and we wish the same fate for (US President George W.) Bush. We hope that he is judged the same way because of the destruction he caused in Iraq," said Raad Sahdi, a 33-year-old teacher.
Salam Mohamad, 31, said: "We want to watch the last drop of life exit (Saddam's) body. We want him executed in public in front of the martyr families. If it is done in secret, we will protest and demand ... the resignation of the Government."
Members of Sadr's militia, the force blamed widely for death-squad attacks on Sunnis, were manning checkpoints in Sadr City despite a curfew.
"I don't care if he's executed publicly or secretly because he will die each minute from now until his death, and he will feel exactly the same feeling as his victims," militia fighter Ahmed Aboudi said.
"I hope his family watches him being executed because his wife will discover now how a wife loses her husband."
But Mr Abadi said it was unlikely the hanging would be televised. Since the Iraqi Government reinstated the death penalty in 2004, 50 people have been hanged, all inside prisons.
Mr Abadi, who lost three of his own brothers to Saddam's regime, feared a televised execution would be provocative.
"I'm worried about the new Iraq's image to the outside world. I don't think we want to make him a martyr ... we don't want to encourage violence."
November 08, 2006 06:53am
SHIA citizens in Iraq yesterday demanded that the execution of fallen dictator Saddam Hussein be shown live on television, as an adviser to the country's Prime Minister said the deposed president would be hanged by January.
"I don't think it will drag on beyond January of next year," said Haider al-Abadi, an MP and confidant of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
Saddam, 69, was sentenced to death on Sunday for ordering a brutal crackdown that claimed the lives of 148 Shi'ites in the village of Dujail, north of Baghdad, after he had survived a 1982 assassination attempt.
Iraqi law includes an automatic appeal for sentences of life in jail and death. A nine-judge appellate chamber will start to review Saddam's case within 30 days.
The high tribunal will forward its judicial ruling to the appellate chamber in 10 days. Then the prosecution and defence have 20 days to submit their arguments.
The appellate chamber has no deadline for issuing a decision but if it upholds the verdict, Saddam will be executed within 30 days.
Mr Abadi was confident the chamber would complete its review within a month.
"Everyone is eager to have Saddam executed ... It is important that we make these people supporting him feel there is no hope (that he will come back) so the killings and the bombings stop," he said.
An official said Saddam's execution would probably take place inside an Iraqi prison in the presence of government officials and private citizens whose families suffered under his reign.
But Saddam's regime is said to have executed more than 300,000 people, and the prospect of him walking to the gallows in private caused people to seethe in Baghdad's Shia bastion, Sadr City.
Iraqis in this slum of 2.5million people, the power base for the fundamentalist cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, said they wanted Saddam's hanging to be televised or carried out in a city square.
"We want him to be executed in Firdoos Square and we wish the same fate for (US President George W.) Bush. We hope that he is judged the same way because of the destruction he caused in Iraq," said Raad Sahdi, a 33-year-old teacher.
Salam Mohamad, 31, said: "We want to watch the last drop of life exit (Saddam's) body. We want him executed in public in front of the martyr families. If it is done in secret, we will protest and demand ... the resignation of the Government."
Members of Sadr's militia, the force blamed widely for death-squad attacks on Sunnis, were manning checkpoints in Sadr City despite a curfew.
"I don't care if he's executed publicly or secretly because he will die each minute from now until his death, and he will feel exactly the same feeling as his victims," militia fighter Ahmed Aboudi said.
"I hope his family watches him being executed because his wife will discover now how a wife loses her husband."
But Mr Abadi said it was unlikely the hanging would be televised. Since the Iraqi Government reinstated the death penalty in 2004, 50 people have been hanged, all inside prisons.
Mr Abadi, who lost three of his own brothers to Saddam's regime, feared a televised execution would be provocative.
"I'm worried about the new Iraq's image to the outside world. I don't think we want to make him a martyr ... we don't want to encourage violence."
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 6:29 PM
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