Shocked Italy seeks execution ban

Outta sight outta mind, you want to bet Georgie, Another Mayor Blunder on the part of Georgie and his gang of thugs, Wonder where Vatican City is on this,

after all they invited the scum bag into their so called hallowed halls.

Ahhhhh Prodi you wanna take away all Georgies little pleasures shame on you

POSTED: 1645 GMT (0045 HKT), January 2, 2007

ROME, Italy (Reuters) -- Italy will campaign at the United Nations for a global ban on the death penalty, Prime Minister Romano Prodi said on Tuesday, after graphic images of Saddam Hussein's hanging shocked people around the world.

Italian politicians of all political parties expressed disgust at Hussein's execution, with even former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi calling it a "political and historic error." (Watch Iraqis pass around footage of execution )

Pressured by a week-long hunger strike by a 76-year-old campaigner against Hussein's execution and the death penalty in general, Prodi said Italy would push the U.N. for a "universal moratorium" on capital punishment.

Prodi said Italy, which has just taken up a temporary Security Council seat, aimed to involve the 85 U.N. countries which signed a non-binding declaration in December against the death penalty in lobbying for a ban.

The Iraqi government has hit back at Italy for its criticism of Hussein's execution, accusing it of hypocrisy, especially after World War Two dictator Benito Mussolini was killed by partisans and hanged upside down in a Milan square in 1945.

"They have no right interfering in the affairs of another country," government official, Yaseen Majeed, was quoted as saying in La Repubblica daily. "Mussolini's trial only lasted one minute."

While Italy's divided political class is united in its opposition of the death penalty -- outlawed in all European Union countries -- the mention of Mussolini reopened wounds between left and right.

Alessandra Mussolini, granddaughter of the fascist dictator and a member of the European Parliament, said her "blood ran cold" when she watched the pictures of Hussein's execution.

"My mind immediately flicked to pictures of my grandfather, who also had his face uncovered exposed to the public for ridicule

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