Rut-ro.
Saddam Hussein Executed
Former Iraqi Leader Hanged for Crimes Against Humanity
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, December 29, 2006; 11:02 PM
BAGHDAD, Dec. 30 -- Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, who rose from humble beginnings to build the Arab world's most ruthless dictatorship but whose fall unleashed a turbulent era for his nation and the world, was executed early Saturday morning in Baghdad, according to Iraqi state television.
Hussein, 69, who demanded a cultlike devotion from his people and built monuments to proclaim his own greatness, was hanged around 6 a.m. local time (10 p.m. Friday EST) in the American-controlled Green Zone in central Baghdad. Hussein was executed before a small group of observers, including some who had been tortured by his regime.
Special Report Washington Post stories and multimedia reports about Iraq, Afghanistan, the War on Terror and more. • Faces of the Fallen Special Report Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death in November for his role in the 1982 execution of about 150 people in the Shiite town of Dujail. Get background, photos and video about Hussein's rise to power and ultimate fall. |
"Criminal Saddam was hanged to death," state-run Iraqiya television said in an announcement. The station played patriotic music and showed images of national monuments and other landmarks.
The execution took place three days after Iraq's highest court upheld Hussein's death sentence, a decision that meant the execution should take place within 30 days. Last month Hussein was found guilty of crimes against humanity for the killings of 148 Shiite men and boys from the northern town of Dujail after an attempt on his life in 1982.
Many human rights groups criticized the trial as unfair, delivering nothing more than victor's justice, a charge Iraqi officials denied.
Also hanged on Saturday morning were Hussein's half-brother Barzan Ibrahim and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the former chief justice of the Revolutionary Court.
Sunni Arab loyalists have already vowed to take revenge for Hussein's execution, while many of Hussein's most ardent critics have said they would have loved to have carried out the execution themselves.
"It's like God asking you to choose between heaven and hell," said Thamer al-Musawi, 47, a barber in Baghdad's Karrada neighborhood, speaking before the execution. "If Saddam gets executed, you go to hell. If he doesn't, you go to heaven. I will choose hell just so Saddam is executed.
"He is not a human being," Musawi added. "He does not deserve to be alive."
On Wednesday, a farewell letter posted on several Web sites in the name of Hussein declared that he was ready to die and urged Iraqis not to hate the people of the countries that had invaded Iraq, just their leaders. His lawyers said the letter was authentic and had been written Nov. 5, the day his death sentence was pronounced. A portion of it reads:
"Here, I offer my soul to God as a sacrifice, and if God wants He will lift it up to where the first believers and martyrs are, and if His decision is postponed, then He is the most merciful." The letter's authenticity is impossible to verify independently.
On Thursday, Hussein had met in his prison cell with his two maternal half brothers and handed them personal messages, according to his lawyers.
No comments:
Post a Comment