Angelique
06-19-2006, 04:17 PM
Prosecutor asks for death sentence for Saddam .Two top defendants included in penalty demand as trial adjourns until July.
BAGHDAD - Iraqi prosecutors asked a judge on Monday to sentence Saddam Hussein to death for his role in the killings of 148 villagers after a 1982 assassination attempt in the village of Dujail.
Prosecutors also requested the death penalty for Saddam’s half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti, former vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan and the former chief judge of Saddam’s Revolutionary Court, Awad Hamed al-Bander, in closing statements at their trial for crimes against humanity.
“The prosecution demand that the court impose the heaviest penalties on those defendants who spread corruption on earth and where not even trees escape their oppression, so we demand the court impose the death penalty,” chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi told chief Judge Raouf Abdel Rahman.
“Well done,” Saddam muttered sarcastically.
Saddam, Barzan, Ramadan, Bander and four local Baath party officials face death by hanging if convicted for their roles in a crackdown against villagers in Dujail.
The arguments brought the eight-month-old trial into its final phase, and after Monday’s session, the court adjourned until July 10, when the defense will begin making its final summation.
Saddam, dressed in a black suit, sat silently, sometimes taking notes, as chief prosecutor al-Moussawi delivered his arguments, listing the evidence against each of the eight defendants.
Defense: Actions were justified
The defense has argued that the actions of the regime were justified because it had to crack down after members of a pro-Iranian Shiite party tried to kill the then-president. Defense witnesses — as well as some prosecution witnesses — have described the assassination attempt.
The defense also has said that some of the 148 sentenced to death are still alive, suggesting that parts of the prosecution's case are wrong or fabricated.
Many of Iraq's Shiite majority and Kurdish minority are eager to see Saddam and his cohorts executed in revenge for his regime's oppression of their communities.
But the perceived fairness of the trial will be a key question. Many Sunni Arabs see the court as a case of "victors' justice" carried out by the Shiites and Kurds who dominate Iraq's government after the fall of Saddam in 2003.
© 2006 Reuters Limited.
BAGHDAD - Iraqi prosecutors asked a judge on Monday to sentence Saddam Hussein to death for his role in the killings of 148 villagers after a 1982 assassination attempt in the village of Dujail.
Prosecutors also requested the death penalty for Saddam’s half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti, former vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan and the former chief judge of Saddam’s Revolutionary Court, Awad Hamed al-Bander, in closing statements at their trial for crimes against humanity.
“The prosecution demand that the court impose the heaviest penalties on those defendants who spread corruption on earth and where not even trees escape their oppression, so we demand the court impose the death penalty,” chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi told chief Judge Raouf Abdel Rahman.
“Well done,” Saddam muttered sarcastically.
Saddam, Barzan, Ramadan, Bander and four local Baath party officials face death by hanging if convicted for their roles in a crackdown against villagers in Dujail.
The arguments brought the eight-month-old trial into its final phase, and after Monday’s session, the court adjourned until July 10, when the defense will begin making its final summation.
Saddam, dressed in a black suit, sat silently, sometimes taking notes, as chief prosecutor al-Moussawi delivered his arguments, listing the evidence against each of the eight defendants.
Defense: Actions were justified
The defense has argued that the actions of the regime were justified because it had to crack down after members of a pro-Iranian Shiite party tried to kill the then-president. Defense witnesses — as well as some prosecution witnesses — have described the assassination attempt.
The defense also has said that some of the 148 sentenced to death are still alive, suggesting that parts of the prosecution's case are wrong or fabricated.
Many of Iraq's Shiite majority and Kurdish minority are eager to see Saddam and his cohorts executed in revenge for his regime's oppression of their communities.
But the perceived fairness of the trial will be a key question. Many Sunni Arabs see the court as a case of "victors' justice" carried out by the Shiites and Kurds who dominate Iraq's government after the fall of Saddam in 2003.
© 2006 Reuters Limited.