Baghdad, Iraq – Iraq’s appeals court is expected to rule on Saddam Hussein’s guilty verdict and death sentence by the middle of January, the chief prosecutor said Monday, setting in motion a possible execution by mid-February.
If the ruling is upheld, The Associated Press has learned, Iraq’s three-man presidential council will allow Hussein’s hanging to take place. The execution must be carried out within 30 days of the appeals court’s decision.
Hussein, who empowered the Sunni minority when he ruled Iraq, was sentenced by the Iraqi High Tribunal for ordering the executions of nearly 150 Shiites from the city of Dujayl after a 1982 attempt on his life.
If the appeals court upholds the sentences, all three members of the Presidential Council – President Jalal Talabani and Vice Presidents Tariq al-Hashimi and Adil Abdul-Mahdi – must sign death warrants before executions can be carried out.
Talabani said Monday that although he had once signed an international petition against the death penalty, his signature was not needed to carry out Hussein’s death sentence. Talabani, a Kurd, has permanently authorized Abdul-Mahdi, a Shiite, to sign on his behalf.
Abdul-Mahdi has said he would sign Hussein’s death warrant, meaning two of three signatures were assured.
Al-Hashimi, the other vice president and a Sunni, gave his word that he also would sign a death sentence as part of the deal under which he got the job April 22, according to witnesses at the meeting, which was attended by U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad.
“We wanted a written promise before the first meeting of the new parliament. But later and during a meeting in the presence of American and British ambassadors and other politicians, the promise became oral in which he vowed not to oppose important rules and laws – especially those related to Saddam,” deputy parliament speaker Khaled al-Attiyah told AP.
Thus the approval of the death penalties handed down Sunday for Hussein, his half brother Barzan Ibrahim and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, chief of the Revolutionary Court, had been part of the pact under which al-Hashimi got one of two vice-presidential posts.
