"What good did it do them?"
Freedom for anyone helps free all of us in some little way, just as surely as slavery for anyone enslaves all of us at some level.
That you criticize such freedom belies your real motivation for threads such as this one, too...
Not really true. When you give more freedom to people who don't respect the law and the freedom of others, we are all less free. Today the Democrats want to give voting rights to felons.
Putting a tyrant or a criminal in jail gives freedom to the rest of us. Women feel free to walk at night if they aren't worried about rapists. Iraqis have more liberty with Saddam in jail.