Saddam appeal starts amid deep Iraq divisions

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Judges have put Saddam Hussein's appeal process into motion as Baghdad found itself once more under round-the-clock curfew after the ousted president's death sentence stirred Iraq's sectarian tensions.

Saddam was sentenced to hang by the Iraqi High Tribunal, which found him guilty on Sunday of crimes against humanity in the case of 148 Shiite civilians killed in revenge for an 1982 attempt on the then Iraqi leader's life.

The verdict served only to deepen Iraq's bitter religious divide, with Shiites celebrating it as a victory against their former oppressor and some Sunni Arabs protesting at this latest humiliation to the ousted regime.

Tribunal spokesman Raed Juhi said the court has 10 days, starting Monday, within which it must submit its ruling justifying Saddam's execution to an appeals committee. This panel will then invite input from the prosecution.

"My experience with this court shows that there is no benefit to gain from appealing because this court is political; nevertheless we will appeal," lead defence lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi said.

Twenty days after the 10 day filing deadline, the case will be sealed and the panel will retire to consider its verdict. No date has been set for their final judgement, which is binding, said Juhi, the court's investigative judge.

If the final verdict confirms Saddam's guilt, he will be executed within 30 days, and some powerful Iraqi voices are calling for the judges not to dawdle.

"We strongly feel that every day he lives is not good for the Iraqi people. We need to put an end to him, to this dictator," Bassam Ridha, a senior aide to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, told AFP.

"I hope this issue comes to an end quickly. Hopefully, in the next few months -- before next summer -- he will be dead," he said, adding that he was giving his personal view and not seeking to influence the verdict.

The satisfaction of Maliki's Shiite-led government at the verdict was mirrored in the joyful street rallies held to celebrate the death sentence in Shiite and Kurdish areas across Iraq.

"This just sentence on Saddam has comforted me greatly," said Fatima Mohammed a teacher in her 50s living in the mainly Shiite city of Kut, who lost six brothers to Saddam's security forces in a 1982 purge against Maliki's then banned Dawa party.

"It's a great day. We do not know how we can express our feelings on such a great day," Wahid Dairam, a 45-year-old writer living in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, told AFP.

"The blood of our brothers and fathers in the mass graves was not spilled in vain. Today, their killer is facing a just fate," he added.

But among Saddam's supporters in Iraq's Sunni Arab minority, there was anger at a ruling many argued had been forced on Iraq by foreign powers, in particular the United States.

In Hawijah, a Sunni town in northern Iraq, hundreds of school children and women gathered and linked their arms bearing portraits of Saddam and placards demanding their former leader's release.

Here -- as elsewhere in Sunni regions of Iraq -- the threat of violence was not far from the surface.

"The Americans and the Iraqis who are with them will see black days ahead of them in Iraq," warned Abdullah Zamar Hassan, a 49-year-old shopkeeper.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi authorities tried to keep a lid on the boiling tensions with a total lockdown in the capital. The streets were empty, the airport closed and security patrols out in force.

A security official said that the Baghdad curfew had been successful, with almost no violent incidents reported overnight in a city which has for months been at the centre of a bloody sectarian turf war.

In Iskandariyah, south of Baghdad, a bomb exploded on a bus and wounded 10 passengers, two of them seriously, police said.

US headquarters announced that three of their soldiers had been killed over the weekend fighting insurgents in western Iraq.

And on Monday, a US helicopter crashed in the north of the country, killing two soldiers on board.

"Two Task Force Lightning soldiers attached to 25th Combat Aviation Brigade, were killed when a helicopter crashed in Salaheddin province," the statement said, adding that no enemy fire had been observed in the area.

The latest deaths brought the US military's death toll in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion to 2,832 according to an AFP count based on Pentagon figures.

There are still 150,000 US troops in Iraq more than three-and-a-half years after Saddam's overthrow and falling domestic support for their mission has become the key issue in Tuesday's US congressional elections.

Rallies continue after Saddam verdict

By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Jubilant Shiites marched by the hundreds Monday, celebrating Saddam Hussein's conviction and death sentence as Sunnis held defiant counter-demonstrations.

The surge in violence expected after the Sunday verdict on Saddam's trial for crimes against humanity still did not materialize. An Interior Ministry spokesman credited a round-the-clock curfew in Baghdad, which has a mixed Shiite-Sunni population, and two restive Sunni provinces. Checkpoints were closed along Iraq's border with Jordan and Syria, a standard precaution taken during domestic emergencies.

Officials said the clampdown, which brought additional patrols and checkpoints in the capital, would likely be lifted by Tuesday morning. On Monday, Baghdad was largely quiet, with offices and the international airport closed and few cars or pedestrians on the streets.

"We need to keep on guard over any kind of response from Saddam supporters," Brig. Abdel-Karim Khalaf said.

In mainly Shiite Hillah, 60 miles south of Baghdad, around 500 people marched carrying placards and shouting slogans denouncing the former dictator, who is accused of killing tens of thousands of Shiites following a 1991 uprising.

"Yes, yes for the verdict, which we have long been waiting for!" chanted the crowd, largely made up of students and government workers.

At least three people were wounded after gunfire broke out at a Shiite rally in the southwestern Baghdad neighborhood of Amil, a mixed Shiite-Sunni area, police Lt. Maithem Abdel-Razaq said.

Ethnic Kurds, who like Iraq's majority Shiites suffered brutal persecution under Saddam, abandoned plans for a celebration rally in the northern city of Mosul over security concerns, said Ghayath al-Sorchi, an official with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, which is led by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.

Al-Sorchi said PUK activists instead distributed gifts to families who lost relatives in crackdowns under Saddam. Saddam is scheduled to appear in court again on Tuesday, when proceedings resume against him and six co-defendants in a separate trial over a crackdown against Iraqi Kurds in the late 1980s — the so-called Anfal case.

Underscoring the widening divide between Shiite and Sunni, about 250 pro-Saddam demonstrators took to the streets in the Sunni city of Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad. They were dispersed by Iraqi soldiers for breaking the curfew. Another 400 pro-Saddam protesters marched through Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad.

The curfew was temporarily lifted in Tikrit to give allow residents to shop and run errands. Angry crowds had gathered in the city on Sunday, holding aloft Saddam portraits, firing guns and chanting slogans vowing to avenge his execution.

Saddam was sentenced by the Iraqi High Tribunal for ordering the execution of nearly 150 Shiites from the city of Dujail following a 1982 attempt on his life.

Iraq's president, whose office must ratify the death penalty sentence against Saddam if it is upheld on appeal, said from Paris Sunday that the trial of the ousted Iraqi leader was fair.

Jalal Talabani would not comment on the guilty verdict or death sentence for fear it could inflame tensions in his volatile nation.

If the appeals court upholds the sentences, they must be ratified by Talabani, a Sunni Kurd, and his two vice presidents, one a Sunni Arab.

Talabani has opposed the death penalty in the past, but found a way around it by deputizing a vice president to sign an execution order on his behalf — a substitute that has been legally accepted.

Saddam was found hiding with an unfired pistol in a hole in the ground near his home village north of Baghdad in December 2003, eight months after he fled the capital ahead of advancing American troops.

Barzan Ibrahim, Saddam's half brother and intelligence chief during the Dujail killings, was sentenced to join him on the gallows, as was Awad Hamed al-Bandar, head of Iraq's Revolutionary Court, which issued the death sentences against the Dujail residents.

Former Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan was convicted of premeditated murder and sentenced to life in prison, while three other defendants were given up to 15 years in prison for torture and premeditated murder. A local Baath Party official was acquitted for lack of evidence.

A nine-judge appeals panel has unlimited time to review the case. If the verdicts and sentences are upheld, the executions must be carried out within 30 days.

A court official told The Associated Press that the appeals process was likely to take three to four weeks once the formal paperwork was submitted. If the verdicts are upheld, those sentenced to death would be hanged despite Saddam's second, ongoing trial on charges of murdering thousands of Iraq's Kurdish minority.

President Bush called the verdict "a milestone in the Iraqi people's efforts to replace the rule of a tyrant with the rule of law."

But symbolic of the split between the United States and many of its traditional allies over the Iraq war, many European nations voiced opposition to the death sentences in the case, including Britain — America's closest ally.

Prime Minister Tony Blair said Monday he opposed the death penalty "whether it's Saddam or anyone else." But he said the trial "gives us a chance to see again what the past in Iraq was, the brutality, the tyranny, the hundreds of thousands of people he killed, the wars."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/saddam_verdict;_ylt=AoQfDufZ277MtY5BbyUPdH_lWMcF;_ylu=X3oDMTA5bGVna3NhBHNlYwNzc3JlbA--

Europeans urge Iraq not to execute Saddam

PARIS (Reuters) - Italy and France on Monday urged Iraq not to execute Saddam Hussein, saying it would be ethically wrong and would risk pushing the country toward civil war.

"In the dramatic, difficult situation in Iraq, the execution of Saddam Hussein could push the country toward a real civil war," Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema told reporters after meeting French counterpart Philippe Douste-Blazy in Paris.

"This is the reason for the appeal we are sending to the Iraqi authorities -- to the democratic authorities of Iraq, which we respect and support -- that the sentence should not be carried out," he said.

Douste-Blazy said France and the European Union were opposed to the death penalty and wanted to see it abolished worldwide.

"So for purely ethical reasons, Saddam Hussein should not suffer the death penalty," he said. "But above all, you also have to think that the situation in Iraq is excessively worrying and we are on the brink of civil war."

In London, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Britain opposed the death penalty. But, pressed by journalists, he repeatedly declined to say directly whether he thought Saddam should be executed, saying it was a matter for Iraqis to decide.

His carefully-worded comments reflect the balance between upholding Britain's long-standing opposition to capital punishment while not being seen to criticize the U.S.-backed Iraqi court that sentenced Saddam.

"We are against the death penalty, whether it is Saddam or anybody else," Blair told a news conference.

"However, what I think is important about this is to recognize that this trial of Saddam -- which has been handled by the Iraqis themselves and they will take the decision about this -- it does give us a very clear reminder of the total and barbaric brutality of that regime," he said.

Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, speaking to reporters during a visit to London, said: "Italy is against the death penalty so even in such a dramatic case as Saddam Hussein, we still think the death penalty must not be put into action."

Finland, which holds the rotating EU presidency, said on Sunday the bloc was opposed to the death penalty and did not believe Saddam should be executed.

The former Iraqi ruler was sentenced on Sunday for crimes against humanity for his role in the killing of 148 Shi'ite villagers after a failed assassination attempt in 1982.

(Additional reporting by Katherine Baldwin and Adrian Croft)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061106/wl_nm/iraq_saddam_europe_dc_1

Helicopter Crashes North of Baghdad
By HAMZA HENDAWI, Associated Press Writer

Monday, November 6, 2006
(11-06) 09:09 PST BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) --

A U.S. helicopter crashed north of the Iraqi capital on Monday, killing two American soldiers on board, and two Marines and a soldier were killed in fighting in the country's restive Anbar province.

The military said no gunfire was reported in the area at the time of the helicopter crash. The incident occurred in Salahuddin province, which includes Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit and was under curfew because of Sunday's verdict and sentencing of the former Iraqi leader.

The round-the clock curfew was gradually easing Monday in Baghdad, with pedestrians allowed back on the streets. Vehicle traffic in Baghdad would be permitted beginning at 6:00 a.m. Tuesday, according to police Lt. Mohammed Khayoun and an aide to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

With the helicopter crash and the Anbar deaths, the number of U.S. troops killed this month in Iraq rose to 18 and follow a particularly violent month for the American military in Iraq, which saw 105 deaths in October.

Still missing was a U.S. soldier kidnapped last month in Baghdad, and the man's Iraqi uncle said Monday he believed his nephew's abductors belong to a "well organized" rogue cell from the Shiite Mahdi Army militia of the anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Entifadh Qanbar, the uncle, said he had received a $250,000-ransom demand from the kidnappers, through an intermediary. He had in turn demanded proof that his nephew was alive and well before entering negotiations.

The U.S. military said last week that that there was "an ongoing dialogue" to win the release of Ahmed Qusai al-Taayie, a 41-year-old reserve soldier from Ann Arbor, Mich. Al-Taayie was visiting his Iraqi wife when he was handcuffed and taken away by gunmen during a visit to the woman's family.

U.S. officials, like Qanbar, said there had been no news of the missing soldier.

"We continue to conduct operations based on actionable intelligence to find our soldier," Lt. Col. Christopher Garver said Monday. "His safe return is obviously a top priority."

Qanbar, a former spokesman for the National Congress Party of senior Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi, said he had contact with the kidnappers through an intermediary in Baghdad, but had not heard from them since Saturday when he demanded that he be shown proof that al-Taayie was alive.

"I want to see him next to the same day newspaper or in a video. I want him to answer certain questions. Any proof that he is still alive," Qanbar told The Associated Press by telephone from Amman, in neighboring Jordan.

Qanbar said he believed a man he identified as Majid al-Qais Omran, also known by his nickname Abu Rami, is responsible for the kidnapping and said he believed he was the leader of an experienced gang.

"It is a very capable gang with a great deal of resources," said Qanbar, "They identified themselves as Mahdi Army members, but I believe they belong to a breakaway cell of the Mahdi Army. Their conduct suggest they have experience in this line of work."

The soldier's wife and two of her siblings have been taken by American troops to the Green Zone, where they were being kept for their safety.

The military was withholding the names of the latest fatalities pending notification of their families, but it identified both Marines as having been assigned to Regimental Combat Team 5. A brief statement from the military said one Marine died on Saturday from wounds received in combat, while the other was wounded in fighting on Saturday and died Monday.

The statement said the soldier had been assigned to 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division, and died on Monday from wounds received in combat. The statement didn't say when he was wounded.

Despite the curfew imposed for the Saddam verdict, the relentless death toll continued among Iraqis as well: The bodies of 50 murder victims were discovered Sunday, the bulk of them in Baghdad, police 1st. Lt. Thaer Mahmoud said.

Mortars slammed into a Sunni neighborhood in northern Baghdad, although no damage or casualties were immediately reported. Other parts of Baghdad were quiet, with offices and the international airport closed and few cars or pedestrians on the streets.

Among U.S. forces, October was the fourth deadliest month for American troops since the war began in March 2003. The U.S. lost 107 troops in Iraq in January 2005; at least 135 in April 2004, and 137 in November 2004.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/11/06/international/i070748S94.DTL

Highlights from the world's press

POSTED: 1144 GMT (1944 HKT), November 6, 2006
Compiled by Ravi Agrawal for CNN

(CNN) -- With Saddam Hussen receiving a death sentence yesterday in an Iraqi court, papers around the world have commented on the outcome and its ramifications for Iraq.

The New York Times says while "Hussein's horrendous crimes deserve exemplary punishment" Iraq has not received the full justice it deserves.

"Mr. Hussein got a fairer trial than he ever would have allowed in his courts. But Iraq got neither the full justice nor the full fairness it deserved. President Bush overreached in calling the trial a milestone in the Iraqi people's efforts to replace the rule of a tyrant with the rule of law.

"From the beginning, the now dominant Shiite and Kurdish politicians have been determined to use Mr. Hussein's trial and punishment to further their own political ends, as Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has continued to do in recent days.

"Mr. Hussein, as expected, repeatedly tried to mock the proceedings. More seriously, powerful politicians regularly tried to influence the outcome, judges were not allowed to rule impartially, and defense lawyers were denied security measures and documents they needed."

In the UK, The Times says the trial "was emphatically not a show trial or a kangaroo court experience. Evidence was carefully assembled and, while the process had inevitable imperfections, Saddam and the other seven men in the dock had the opportunity to rebut what was placed in front of them. The sentences awarded carefully distinguished between the roles played by the defendants 24 years ago (and one of the accused was acquitted).

"The former strongman alternated between denying the legitimacy of the court and dismissing the relevance of the charges. It was a defiant stance but not one that should elicit any sympathy. This should be reserved for his victims."

The Jerusalem Post says "the conviction and sentencing of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein by a special tribunal in Baghdad should be regarded as a triumph for justice and a sign of hope for Iraq, the region and the world. Iraqis have good reason to celebrate, as they did yesterday across the country, despite the curfew imposed in anticipation of the decision."

India's Hindu says the verdict is a "travesty of justice." "[Hussein] certainly deserved to be punished if he did contrive the 1982 execution through a sham trial of 148 people in the town of Dujail. However, the verdict of a Baghdad trial court convicting him for crimes against humanity and sentencing him, his half-brother, and a former judge to death by hanging and four others to terms of imprisonment ranging from 15 years to life lacks even a fig-leaf of legitimacy.

"The conduct of the trial, falling far short of international legal standards, was a travesty of justice, as a widely admired human rights advocate, Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General and one of the defence lawyers, said in open court before being physically ejected ...

"The first chief judge resigned saying he had come under unbearable political pressure. A second judge was appointed but did not take up the assignment.

"The judge who eventually presided was aggressively biased. Severe restrictions were placed on Mr. Hussein's access to lawyers. Three defence lawyers were assassinated during the trial... Hussein's notorious contempt for the rule of law can hardly be trotted out by those who toppled him in the name of freedom, justice, and democracy as an excuse for the farcical trial."

Meanwhile a report in The International Herald Tribune says according to international legal experts there are doubts whether Hussein was allowed to present a full defence.

"Lawyers and human rights advocates broadly agreed that the Iraqi tribunal's proceedings frequently fell short of international standards for war crimes cases. But even critics of the trial said the five Iraqi judges who heard the case had made a reasonable effort to conduct a fair trial in the face of sustained pressure from Iraqi political leaders for a swift death sentence. American lawyers pointed to substantial evidence offered by the prosecution implicating Saddam in the crimes against humanity with which he had been charged."

U.S. elections
The U.S. congressional elections tomorrow are receiving widespread international coverage because of the far-reaching effects of US foreign policy.

The Washington Post says this could be an election where the fear of the status quo could be greater than the fear of change.

"How much change could depend on how voters -- particularly independents -- resolve these questions: How much has Iraq trumped the larger war against terror, which two years ago was the president's great link to swing voters? How effectively have Republicans used a tough-on-immigration and antitax posture to counter the erosion of support for the war? How unshakable is the economic pessimism in the Midwest? And what is the lasting impact of political scandals, topped by former Rep. Mark Foley's sexual approaches to former teenage pages?"

Russia's St. Peterburg Times says an important point for pollsters to consider is the historic strength of incumbents running for re-election in the United States.

"If Americans believe that these midterm elections represent a model of democracy for the rest of the world, they should think again. Despite an unpopular war and some indiscreet e-mails from a Republican congressman, the Democrats' hopes of winning a majority in either house face a very undemocratic obstacle: The overwhelming power of incumbency in the United States.

"During the past 50 years, more than 95 percent of congressmen who have stood for re-election have won. In 2004 only five incumbent congressmen were defeated; in 2002, the total was four."

Meanwhile, a report in The New York Times says President Bush has seized on the conviction of Hussein as a "milestone in Iraq" while seeking to rally Republican voters on the issue of national security.

"The White House said the timing of the announcement, two days before Election Day, had nothing to do with American politics and had been dictated by the Iraqi court. But Mr. Bush moved quickly to put it to use in what has been his central strategic imperative over the past week, trying to rouse Republican voters to turn out. 'Today we witnessed a landmark event in the history of Iraq: Saddam Hussein was convicted and sentenced to death by the Iraqi High Tribunal,' Mr. Bush said to roars of approval in a hockey auditorium packed with supporters in Grand Island, Neb. 'Saddam Hussein's trial is a milestone in the Iraqi people's efforts to replace the rule of a tyrant with the rule of law.'"

Stern warning
As the news of Nicholas Stern's report on the devastating effects of climate change slowly recedes from the opinion pages of the world's papers, The Economist has a timely warning: "Sir Nicholas may well err on the gloomy side. But governments should act not on the basis of the likeliest outcome from climate change but on the risk of something really catastrophic (such as the melting of Greenland's ice sheet, which would raise sea levels by six to seven meters). Just as people buy insurance on the off-chance that their house might burn down, and nations pay for standing armies just in case a rival power might try to invade them, so the world should invest a small proportion of its resources in trying to avert the risk of boiling the planet. The costs are not huge. The dangers are."

The untruths of the Internet
And finally, an appropriate final thought on this page: Can you trust the words you read on the internet? Tim Berners-Lee, the founder of the worldwide Web, doesn't think so. He recently warned that the Internet was becoming "a place where untruths start to spread more than truths."

The Guardian in the UK seems to agree: "We seem to inhabit parallel universes. While our day-to-day life is dragged ever more under the surveillance of CCTV cameras, data bases, loyalty cards and identity checks, the Web spirals out of control. Perhaps, indeed, it is because ordinary citizens feel so scrutinised in everything they do (someone somewhere knows not only where you shop and what you buy, but also where you live and what kind of health problems afflict you) that they run riot on the Web, forging imaginary identities and spinning fanciful tales."

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/11/06/tbr.papers/

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