This feels a little anticlimactic:
Angry, shaking and defiant, Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death this morning by hanging for ordering the massacre of Iraqi civilians.The wheels of justice grind slow- too slow. I wish they would finish these trials quickly to end the Sunni's hope that he will eventually return to power. And I'm happy for the families of those he's murdered. They must be relieved that he has been sentenced to death.
[...]
Saddam was convicted of ordering the deaths of 148 Shia men and teenage boys in the town of Dujail in 1982.
The killings followed a failed assassination attempt against him and were intended to act as a grim warning to others not to oppose him.
The hearing has now been adjourned.
Saddam refused to stand as the verdict was delivered
Saddam refused to stand as the verdict was delivered
Saddam was on trial with seven co-accused:
* Awad Hamed al Bander, former chief judge in Saddam's Revolutionary Court, has been sentenced to hang
* Saddam's half-brother Barzan al Tikriti, head of the feared Mukhabarat intelligence service, was sentenced to hang
* Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan was sentenced to life in prison
* Three Ba'ath party officials were sentenced to 15 years in prison
* Abdullah Kazim Ruwayyid, former Ba'ath official, given15 years
* Mizhar Abdullah Ruwayyid, former Ba'ath official, given 15 years
* Ali Dayih Ali, former Ba'ath official, given 15 years
* Mohammed Azawi Ali, a Ba'ath party official in Dujail, was cleared.
Saddam is in the middle of a second crimes against humanity trial and he is likely to appeal against the Dujail death sentence, which is likely to take two months.
Michelle Malkin has the names of those killed and an excerpt from the trial in which Saddaam's use of chemical weapons against the Kurds is described.
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