Hussein executed, Iraqi TV stations report
Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein has been executed, according to two Arabic language media outlets.
Hussein was hanged before dawn on Saturday in Iraq, at about 6 a.m. (10 p.m. Friday ET), the U.S.-backed Al-Hurra television reported.
[CNN.com]
And good riddance to bad rubbish.
Earlier, Munir Haddad, a judge on the appeals court that upheld the former dictator’s death sentence, and an adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki each confirmed the paperwork needed for Hussein’s execution had been prepared late Friday.”All the procedures have been completed,” Haddad said.
At the same time, a U.S. district judge refused a request to stay the execution. (Read U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly’s decision (pdf))
Attorney Nicholas Gilman said in an application for a restraining order, filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Washington, that a stay would allow Hussein “to be informed of his rights and take whatever action he can and may wish to pursue.” (Read the court filing (pdf))
Haddad had called Gilman’s filing “rubbish,” and said, “It will not delay carrying out the sentence,” which he called “final.”
Haddad also said there is no need for a presidential decree for the implementation of the execution.
He said once the handover is completed, “the sentence will be carried out swiftly, without any delay. God willing.”
Haddad, who will attend the execution, said he received a call from al-Maliki’s office asking him and a prosecutor to be ready for it. (Watch what signs point to an imminent execution )
Hussein will be hanged along with two others, Barzan Hassan and Awad Bandar. All were convicted of killing 148 Shiite Muslims in the Iraqi town of Dujail nearly 25 years ago. (Full story)
Haddad wouldn’t disclose the location of the execution and said it won’t be broadcast live on TV because of human rights issues.
Meanwhile, Giovanni di Stefano, one of Hussein’s defense attorneys, told CNN the U.S. military officially informed him that the former Iraqi dictator has been transferred to Iraqi authorities for his execution and that a “credible source” told him Hussein will be executed “very shortly — in the next couple of hours.”
And di Stefano indicated that the move by lawyers in the U.S. court could mean Hussein is in U.S. military custody now.
“The United States may very well have had a cause to effectively take him back in the event” a judge “grants the temporary restraining order, in which case his life would then be spared at least for a period of time or until such further order of the court,” he said.
Giving Hussein to the Iraqis despite a temporary restraining order would be contempt of court, di Stefano said.
Conflicting reports These latest developments come during a day of conflicting reports over whether Hussein was in U.S. or Iraqi custody. Throughout the day, U.S. officials have not wavered in their stance that he remains in U.S. custody. (Watch speculation fly about timing of Hussein’s execution )
There has been speculation that Hussein would be executed before Eid Al-Adha — a holiday period that means Feast of the Sacrifice, celebrated by Muslims around the world at the climax of the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.
There is a belief that the execution could be soon because the law does not permit executions to be carried out during religious holidays.
Eid begins Saturday for Sunnis and Sunday for Shiites and lasts for four days. Hussein is a Sunni Muslim.
Baha al-Araji, a member of the Iraqi parliament from the Muqtada al-Sadr bloc, said the government is seeking the “opinion of clerics, both Sunni and Shiite, whether they can carry out the death sentence against Saddam on Saturday since it’s the start of Eid.”
“The clerics would issue a fatwa saying that due to exceptional circumstances the death sentence can be carried out,” said al-Araji, whose political movement represents Shiite Muslims.
Sheikh Jalaleddin al-Saghir, who is both a Shiite cleric and a parliament member from the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, said, “There is absolutely no problem from a religious standpoint to carry out the death sentence at the start of Eid.”
Baghdad now is in its regular overnight curfew, and Iraqi and U.S. troops are bracing for protests and violence if an execution occurs. (Watch what some Iraqis think will happen when Hussein dies )
Ministerial aides said government officials have been in “emergency meeting,” and al-Araji confirmed that officials were still debating whether to execute the former Iraqi leader on Saturday.
Gallows in Green Zone Al-Araji said the scaffolding where Hussein is to be hanged is in Baghdad’s Green Zone, the center of power for coalition officials.
He said he saw a judge, a cleric and a physician at the site. According to Iraqi law, these people have to be present at the execution.
“These people were told to remain there on standby waiting for orders for the government,” al-Araji said.
Al-Araji told CNN that he and other parliament members and government officials have been cleared to attend the hanging.
“I would have wished for this to happen in Sadr City, where he has killed the most people,” he said.
If the hanging does occur on Saturday, it will “most likely take place between 6 a.m. and noon,” he said. Those hours translate to 10 p.m. Friday and 4 a.m. Saturday in the Eastern United States.
Speaking from Doha, Qatar, Najib al-Nuaimi, one of Hussein’s defense attorneys, said Hussein’s “fate definitely [is] in the hands of God.” (Full story)
Meeting with half-brothers Another defense lawyer, Badie Aref, told CNN that Hussein met with two of his half-brothers in his cell on Thursday and passed on messages and instructions to his family.
“President Saddam was just bracing for the worst, so he wanted to see his brothers and pass on some messages and instructions to his family,” Aref said. The half brothers who visited were Sabawi and Wathban Ibrahim Hassan al-Tikriti, he said.
Another of Hussein’s half-brothers, Barzan al-Tikriti, has been sentenced to death and is being held in Iraq under the same charges as Hussein.
Aref said the U.S. soldiers guarding Hussein on Tuesday took away a radio he kept in his cell so he could not hear news reports about his death sentence, which was confirmed that day.
“They did not want him to hear the news from the appeals court upholding the sentence,” he said. “They gave him back the radio on Wednesday.”
Aref said Saddam found out about the appeals court verdict “a few hours after it was announced.”
Crimes against humanity Hussein was convicted on November 5 of crimes against humanity in connection with the killings of 148 people in the rown of Dujail after an attempt on his life.
The dictator was found guilty of murder, torture and forced deportation.
The Dujail episode falls within 12 of the worst cases out of 500 documented “baskets of crimes” during the Hussein regime.
The U.S. State Department says torture and extrajudicial killings followed the Dujail killings and that 550 men, women and children were arrested without warrants.
CNN Did a decent write up, but I had to correct a few typos and it seems a bit cut and paste, but there isn’t a ton of information currently. Verses the Yahoo News post that the Drudge Report linked below… it’s a lot more info. Just not as pertinent as Above.
U.S.-backed Iraqi television station Al Hurra said Saddam Hussein had been executed by hanging shortly before 6 a.m. (0300 GMT) on Saturday.
Arabic satellite channel Arabiya also reported the execution had taken place.
The former Iraqi president ousted in April 2003 by a U.S.-led invasion was convicted in November of crimes against humanity over the killings of 148 Shi’ite villagers from Dujail after a failed assassination bid in 1982.
An appeals court upheld the death penalty on Tuesday and the government rushed through the procedures to hang him by the end of the year and before the Eid al-Adha holiday that starts on Saturday, coinciding with the haj pilgrimage to Mecca.
The government had kept details of its plans shrouded in secrecy amid concerns it could spark a violent backlash from his former supporters with Iraq on the brink of civil war.
The execution will delight Iraq’s majority Shi’ites, who faced oppression during Saddam’s three-decade rule, but may anger some in his resentful Sunni minority.
Some Kurdish leaders had sought a delay so they too could see justice for the man they accuse of genocide against them.
Saddam’s conviction on November 5 was hailed by President Bush as a triumph for the democracy he promised to foster in Iraq after the invasion almost four years ago.
With U.S. public support for the war slumping as the number of American dead approaches 3,000, Washington is likely to welcome the death of Saddam, despite misgivings among many allies about capital punishment.
But the hanging could complicate efforts by Shi’ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to heal Iraq’s sectarian divisions with violence spiralling out of control and threatening to pitch the country into full-scale civil war.
Once the belligerent strongman of the Middle East, Saddam’s power crumbled when U.S. tanks swept into Baghdad in April 2003. He fled and was captured in December that year by U.S. soldiers who found him hiding in a hole near his hometown of Tikrit.
During his three decades in power, Saddam was accused of widespread oppression of political opponents and genocide against Kurds in northern Iraq. His execution means he will never face justice on those charges.
Defiant to the end, Saddam insisted during his trial that he was still the president of Iraq.
He said in a letter written after his conviction in November that he offered himself as a “sacrifice.”
“If my soul goes down this path (of martyrdom) it will face God in serenity,” he wrote in the letter.
Ran across a great write up on the BBC Website that included an interesting section:
[BBC]
‘Held to account’
US President George W Bush hailed the execution as “an important milestone” on the road to building an Iraqi democracy, but warned it would not end the deadly violence there.
He said: “It is a testament to the Iraqi people’s resolve to move forward after decades of oppression that, despite his terrible crimes against his own people, Saddam Hussein received a fair trial.
“It is an important milestone on Iraq’s course to becoming a democracy that can govern, sustain, and defend itself, and be an ally in the War on Terror.”
UK Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett welcomed the fact that Saddam Hussein had been tried by an Iraqi court “for at least some of the appalling crimes he committed” and said “he has now been held to account”.
France called on Iraqis to “look towards the future and work towards reconciliation and national unity”.
UPDATE: The Execution Video has been posted on Google Video. It is a little graphic, so I wouldn’t suggest kids watching it.
Edit: ok the first copy of the video was down. Not exactly sure why. But there are multiple copies popping up.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5034103744788985248PS – The uproar about the video is getting bad. The Official Video stops before the hanging and looks solemn. The Video I’ve linked here from the cell phone shows taunts being yelled at Sadaam, and Sadaam being interrupted when he starts praying. The Register mentions that “inquiries have been started.”
[...] Hussein Executed [...]