Posted on 12/29/2006 2:39:42 AM PST by TexKat
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Saddam Hussein's lawyers have been asked to pick up his personal effects but Iraq's Justice Ministry denied it had taken custody of the former president and dismissed a U.S. suggestion he would hang as early as Saturday.
One defense lawyer, who declined to be identified, said Saddam had been handed over by U.S. forces to Iraqi government custody. U.S. military spokesmen said they had nothing to add to a statement late on Thursday that he was still in their control.
Asked about comments from the defense lawyer that Saddam had been handed over, Deputy Justice Minister Bosho Ibrahim told Reuters: "This is not true. He is still with the Americans."
He also dismissed a remark by a senior U.S. official who said there were plans to send Saddam to the gallows as early as Saturday. The ministry, which is in charge of implementing court rulings, would not execute Saddam before January 26, he said.
Khalil al-Dulaimi, who led Saddam's defense team until he was sentenced on November 5, told Reuters: "The Americans called me and asked me to pick up the personal effects."
On Thursday, Saddam was allowed to see two of his half-brothers, who are also in detention at a U.S. base near Baghdad. A lawyer said the former president was in high spirits.
U.S. military and embassy spokesmen dealing with the issue said they had nothing to add to a statement late on Thursday which said Saddam was still in U.S. custody and stressed the need for secrecy over arrangements for security reasons.
Although legally in Iraqi custody, U.S. troops physically keep guard over Saddam. And although Iraqis will carry out the execution, U.S. and Iraqi officials say, it seems likely U.S. forces will stay on hand throughout for fear that opponents of the former leader could turn it into a public spectacle.
Iraqi officials backed away on Thursday from suggestions they would definitely hang him within a month, in line with a 30-deadline set out in the statues of the tribunal. A cabinet minister told Reuters a week-long religious holiday ending only on January 7 would stall any execution.
HAPPY TO BE A MARTYR
Saddam's lawyer said he bade farewell to two of his half brothers on Thursday in a rare prison meeting.
"He was in very high spirits and clearly readying himself," Badie Aref, a defense lawyer, told Reuters after the 69-year-old former leader met half-brothers Watban and Sabawi, who are also both held at the U.S. army's Camp Cropper near Baghdad airport.
"He told them he was happy he would meet his death at the hands of his enemies and be a martyr, not just languish in jail.
The novelty of the U.S.-sponsored process by which Saddam and his third half-brother Barzan, along with another senior member of the Baath party, were condemned on November 5 has left considerable room for wrangling over the timing of any execution among rival factions and between Washington and Baghdad.
"It's none of the Americans' business to decide when," one justice ministry official said on Friday.
Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki had previously said he wanted Saddam hanged this year for the killings, torture and other crimes against fellow Shi'ites in the town of Dujail.
But some of Saddam's fellow Sunnis have warned this could reinforce their community's alienation and many ethnic Kurds want Saddam first convicted of genocide against them in a second trial that is still underway.
Saddam is due back in court in that trial on January 8.
Iraq's Saddam-era penal code bars executions on religious holidays. Eid al-Adha holiday, which follows the annual haj pilgrimage to Mecca, runs until January 7 in Iraq.
Nonetheless, the U.S. official in the United States said Saddam could be hanged within days: "I've heard that it's going to be a couple more days, probably."
(Additional reporting by Suleiman al-Khalidi in Dubai, Ibon Villelabeitia in Baghdad)
marsh, thanks for your input.
FYI, my safety is in reliance of God, His son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit.
The human being seems to fail us occasionally in life. So I tend not to put all my trust in lower powers.
Earthkisser.
Actions have consequences. Saddam will face his.
I heard on FNC that the gallows and the rope have been constructed specifically to break his neck quickly so that he will NOT linger but die muy pronto. It was the Americans who helped with that, I heard, but the Iraqis wanted it so that they could not be accused of cruel and unusual punishement. Whether all this is true I don't know, but it sounds plausible.
Because you are Canadian. Canada has become a nation of second guessers and navel gazers. Maybe it is because it absorbed so many of the US's cowards or just because of breathing all of their secondhand pot smoke. :) Where is the legacy of the mounties that always get their man or the Yukon fur traders? Canada has always been USA-lite.
I wonder what his affects would look like after his short drop and quick stop - i.e. a gravity check with new necktie?
A Danish documentary film crew obtained exclusive rights to go behind the scenes and record Saddam Hussein's trial
This man paid Palestinians to kill Jews in Israel. I guess he's about to get his just desserts.
Earlier, reports were published that gallows for Hussein have been installed in Baghdad. CBS channel even informed that during his way from the camera to the gallows he would be accompanied by a cameraman. It has not been reported who the footage will be used in future.
http://www.regnum.ru/english/762841.html
Doing what's right and doing what's easy are usually different things. The news media is doing all kinds of hand-wringing about the violence that Saddam's execution will bring from "insurgents". Trust me, a huge majority of Iraqis will be partying and dancing when this bastard swings. He should've been whacked 17 years ago during Desert Storm.
If we listened to these muslim whacks every time they complained or threatened anything, the world would be paralyzed.
Earthkisser.
ROTFLMAO kithing everything in thight
ADDENDUM ADDENDUM
should have been;
rolling on the floor laughing my earth off!!
Nevertheless, some people prove they are too evil to be given the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness", as they have denied it to so many others, often brutally, with no remorse or regard to the humanity of those they have brutalized.
Such people we must deal with coldly and severely. That's just the way it is.
Think “Stone dead hath no fellow” and “That fellow’s got to swing.”
"Toppling Saddam Hussein did not automatically create a new and better Iraq. Executing him won't either"
These people live in an automated world - time to take away their computers, microwaves, BMWs and send them to Ethiopia, where there are no "automatic" solutions to life's problems.
Give the MSM a dose of Blood, Sweat and Tears instead of prescription drugs, deodorant and eyedrops.
Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh
Contact with the real world is sorely needed.
If Saddam had announced his intention to subjugate the world to the master race and was in the process of invading nearly every country in Europe, your comparison might be a little more apt. As it is, the mullahs and Islamic radicals now call the shots in Iraq and indeed much of the Middle East. It is they, not Saddam who threaten America and Europe.
There's a stark irony in his execution in the month in which America suffers its heaviest casualties. It highlights how irrelevant he is and always was to the whole Islamic terror network.
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