Toughening the Hanging Sentence
Ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, who was sentenced to hang for crimes against humanity Sunday, was back in court in two days, facing separate charges of genocide of the Kurds. In Iraq, they don’t doubt the death sentence will be executed, speculating about the dates of hanging and whether it will turn into a public event.
In two days after being sentenced to death for killing Shiites, Saddam Hussein was back in court again, this time of the so-called Anfal campaign, involving the deaths of 180,000 Kurds poisoned by gas attacks in 1988.
Hussein was unusually calm yesterday and silently listened to witnesses. His only challenge was that they weren’t duly subjected to cross interrogation and, therefore, their evidences couldn’t be deemed incriminating. Lawyers of former leader boycott the genocide trial and didn’t attend the hearing.
Meanwhile, Hussein’s defense lodged an appeal against the hanging sentence for Saddam. But in Iraq, nearly everyone is sure the Court of Appeal will sustain the verdict. The actual concern is rather the date of hanging. The forecast of Jaafar Moussawi, chief prosecutor for the Dujail case, is that Hussein will be executed by mid.-February.
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All the Article in Russian as of Nov. 08, 2006
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