The news was hardly surprising. Saddam Hussein, the former dictator of Iraq, was sentenced to death by hanging on Sunday morning. The verdict was handed down in the trial for the killing of 148 Shiites in response to an assassination attempt in 1982. Two of his six co-defendents also face execution, another three were given long jail terms.
The former Iraqi dictator is expected to appeal the verdict -- a process that should only take a few weeks. If the appeal fails the execution must be carried out within 30 days. While some legal experts are calling for a separate trial on atrocities committed against Kurds to be allowed to conclude, Iraqi officials have said there would be no delay in carrying out the sentence if it is upheld.
In Iraq there were some scenes of jubilation in Shiite areas, such as Sadr City and Najaf. In Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, furious Sunni supporters paraded with photographs of their fallen former leader.
International reaction has been divided. The US President George W. Bush has described the sentence as a "milestone," saying it was "a major achievement for Iraq's young democracy and its constitutional government." Finland, which holds the presidency of the European Union, called on Iraq to refrain from executing the former dictator, and emphasized that the EU opposes capital punishment "in all cases and under all circumstances." Margaret Beckett, the UK foreign minister, welcomed the decision. "Appalling crimes were committed by Saddam Hussein's regime," she said. "It's right that those accused against such crimes by the Iraqi people should face Iraqi justice."
Meanwhile the White House has rejected as "preposterous" suggestions that the verdict was timed to coincide with the US mid-term elections which take place on Tuesday.
The left-leaning Berliner Zeitung writes that many Iraqis don’t really care about the fate of their one-time president and oppressor. "They have other bigger existential worries." The trial will "go down in history as a missed opportunity," the paper predicts, saying it could have served as an example of how to deal with dictators and their crimes, and laid the basis for reconciliation between Iraq's ethnic and religious groups. "Instead the justice system was exploited by the occupying power." The paper writes that the sentence could help Bush in the congressional elections. It comments that for many victims and their families the verdict means that Saddam will never be held responsible for all those other crimes. It argues that the fact that some politicians in Europe have reacted positively to the death sentence "is a declaration of moral and political bankruptcy."
The trial of Saddam, the financial daily Handelsblatt reminds us, was at one time expected to act "as a catharsis." Now, in the face of the increasing violence, the Saddam trial "has seemed an unimportant sideshow … The original aim of self purification has been overtaken by the daily chaos." The paper argues that the trial could easily be dismissed as a farce, but it was not. "A dictator had to answer for his crimes in court," it writes. The trial was especially important in that it took place in a country that had experienced only arbitrary justice for decades. "Saddam, who had made himself godlike with his ludicrous personality cult, was shrunk back to normal size in court." This alone made the trial worthwhile. The Kurds should now be given the chance to bring him to justice for crimes against them. The paper counsels that there should be "no rush to send Saddam to his death ... if at all.
The conservative daily Die Welt writes that the court has shown courage. It praises Iraq for being the first Arab country to attempt to "use the law to deal with a terrible dictator and to embark on a new path towards a different future." In a separate editorial it writes that this week might end with "Saddam condemned and Bush deprived of power," if the Democrats win the congressional elections on Tuesday. "The majority of Americans were not against Saddam's overthrow," the paper argues. They are now turning on a government who didn't control the aftermath. "They are not shedding any tears for Saddam, but many for the 2,000 soldiers who have been killed since his overthrow."
The Financial Times Deutschland comments on how much things have changed in Iraq since Saddam first went on trial. Two and a half years ago, Iraqis and the rest of the world still had high hopes that "Iraq was to grow into a democratic, peaceful nation, a role model for the Middle East." The trial was to give an entire people the chance to deal with their past and help them move towards reconciliation. "It failed," writes the FTD. The paper blames this on the fact that the trial did not meet Western legal standards, and it also criticizes the death sentence. "This type of punishment won't give anyone satisfaction," it predicts. It argues that the verdict will strengthen those who claim the trial smacked of victors' justice.
No one is expecting the sentencing of the former dictator to mark a new start in Iraq, writes the left-wing Die Tageszeitung. "In a country on the brink of civil war, there are no real victors … The daily terror is occupying Iraqis so much that they don’t want to deal with Saddam's past or an uncertain future." The situation is so bad in the country that describing the trial as victors' justice now seems absurd. "One would have thought that a condemned Saddam would have been a PR gift for the Republicans and President Bush two days before the US congressional elections -- instead the American warmongers are on the defensive." The paper concludes that when it comes to Iraq, the US electorate is just looking for "the best and quickest exit strategy."
-- Siobhán Dowling, 2:30 p.m. CET
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