Posted on 08/16/2005 1:10:20 PM PDT by Sthitch
BAGHDAD (AFP) - The first executions in Iraq since the ousting of Saddam Hussein will take place within days, Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari said -- in what could be an ominous sign for the jailed former dictator.
"The president (Jalal Talabani) has signed three death sentences and the next few days will see the first executions in Kut," 175 kilometers (110 miles) south of Baghdad, Jaafari told reporters on Tuesday.
Three members of the Al-Qaeda-linked group Ansar al-Sunna were sentenced to death in May, a verdict later approved by the Supreme Council for Justice, the highest judicial authority in Iraq.
Kurd Bayan Ahmad al-Jaf, a 30-year-old taxi driver, as well as two Sunni Arabs, Uday Dawud al-Dulaimi, a 25-year-old builder, and Taher Jassem Abbas, a 44-year-old butcher, were condemned to death after being convicted of killing and kidnapping policemen and raping Iraqi women.
They were the first death sentences to be announced by Jaafari's government since capital punishment was suspended by US authorities following the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
Officials from the human rights group Amnesty International condemned the announcement Tuesday, saying it was concerned that dozens of death sentences had been handed out in recent weeks.
"We condemned the passing of death sentences in Iraq before 2003, and we also condemn them now," said Said Boumadouha, an Amnesty official in London who was part of the organisation's last delegation to visit Iraq in early 2004.
Tuesday's announcement could also set a precedent for sentencing during the high-profile trials of former regime figures, including Saddam for crimes against humanity, Boumadouha added.
"In those cases the charges are so serious and the evidence so clear that quite a few people from the old regime (in Iraq) will probably face the death sentence," he said.
Boumadouha said he was aware of at least 50 death sentences being passed in Iraq since the beginning of 2005, adding that Amnesty would be taking "urgent action" following Tuesday's announcement.
All Amnesty members should write to Iraqi authorities urging that the sentences be commuted, Boumadouha said.
Saddam is currently in US custody near Baghdad airport along with his top henchmen awaiting trial on charges of crimes against humanity.
Sources close to the Iraq Special Tribunal set up to try the former dictator said last week his trial could begin within the next couple of months.
The court filed the first charges against Saddam in late July over the 1982 killing of 143 residents of the village of Dujail, northeast of Baghdad, where he had been the target of a failed assassination bid.
But what about Saddam's execution?
Hold up... Al-Qaeda is raping women?
No need for tin foil unless they blow them up?
""The first executions in Iraq since the ousting of Saddam Hussein will take place within days""
tickets at ticketmaster i wonder??? can someone advise??
(How do the libs resolve these conflicts in their own philosophies, anyway?)
I wonder what Amnesty International has to say about the Nuremberg trials.
It's nice to see Iraq taking out the trash. As much as we have all been waiting anxiously for Saddam's date with the executioner, I'm sure the Iraqi people have been many times more so.
I thought Al Queda was NOT in Iraq? I must have missed something here. bwahahahahahahahaa!
Dead dictator walking.
Dead dictator walking.
Funny, I don't remember A.I. being too vocal about that. It was probably drowned out by their condemnations of the US and Israel.
Yeah, PETA was giving them a hard time about the camels.
Good point. The accused must have been standing in the way of our "stealing oil".
Eeeeexcellent. Can I watch? Will they be televised on Al-Jizzle?
Good, let me know when the big fish gets his hemp tie.
I am sure we shall hear of many more executions as they can process these Ali Babba through the system. Wonder if they will video tape the firing squad and show it to Saddam, Chemical Ali and the others, as they await their just due.
After looking at your tag line, one can only get confused about Hox Clusters! Ha!
Executions might start having the desired preventive effect that the liberals always wrongheadedly deny that they produce. Especially public ones. Hangings. I sure hope they don't let them ride the needle in some sanitized private location.
Pour que encourager les autres.
Now that I think about it, we shall probably not hear about the executions at all. Not unless the left seizes upon them to show what savages the Iraqis are.
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