Speculation, secrecy shrouds Saddam's final hours
By Ibon Villelabeitia
Fri Dec 29, 2:18 PM ET
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - As he awaits his final hour in a dreary, U.S. military-run prison down the street from one of his former palaces, confusion and secrecy shroud when and how Saddam Hussein will be hanged.
A court this week upheld a sentence that the man who ruled Iraq with an iron fist for three decades until the 2003 U.S.-led invasion be sent to the gallows for crimes against humanity.
But speculation over the timing of the historic execution is flying thick and fast amid conflicting reports about Saddam's transfer to Iraqi authorities for his hanging.
As Iraq prepared to start a week-long religious holiday on Saturday that should halt executions under Iraq law, U.S.-backed al Hurra television quoted unnamed sources as saying workers were busy erecting gallows in the Green Zone by the Tigris.
A U.S. official in Baghdad late on Friday shot down reports that the U.S. military had handed the former president, saying: "He is still in U.S. custody."
Although legally in Iraqi custody, U.S. troops have kept guard over Saddam and are expected to hold on to him until the last minute to avoid security breaches.
Defense lawyers fueled speculation when they said they had been told to collect Saddam's belongings and that Saddam was allowed a visit by his brothers on Thursday -- a right a condemned man has before he is hanged.
Another defense lawyer said prison guards had taken away a small radio Saddam had been given several months ago and that the former strongman had sensed "something was happening."
FINAL LAST WORDS?
Saddam, who has said he is not afraid to die, was reported by his lawyer to be in "very high spirits" as he awaits his appointment with the hangman at the U.S. army's Camp Cropper at what was once Baghdad's Saddam International Airport.
The prison is down the street from a lavish palace Saddam built on an artificial lake which is now used as headquarters by U.S. generals.
Not only the date, but the hour of the hanging is a mystery. Executions since the death penalty was reinstated in Iraq have taken place at dawn but there is also speculation Saddam's could be at noon, or rushed through at any time. A Shi'ite politician said religious authorities were reviewing the case.
In court, Saddam has appeared wearing a white shirt and dark suit, his hair neatly trimmed and dyed black, a far cry from his disheveled appearance when he was captured by U.S. troops in December 2003, hiding in a hole near Tikrit.
If he is treated like other convicts, he could be hooded and dressed in green overalls with his hands bound behind his back.
Under Iraq's penal code, Saddam, who used his court appearances to launch bombastic attacks against his enemies, will be allowed to make a final statement if he wishes.
While a public execution is unlikely, Iraqis are likely to want proof that he is really dead, as when U.S. forces published graphic images of his dead sons and showed the bodies to journalists after they were killed in July 2003.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/iraq_saddam_scene_dc
Death, exile come with being a dictator
By ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer
Some ended up in prison, others were butchered at the hands of their own people. A lucky few lived out their days in comfortable exile or in positions of privilege in the lands they ruled. India's independence leader Mohandas K. Gandhi said dictators "can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall." That hasn't always proven true. Russia's Josef Stalin, North Korea's Kim Il-Sung, China's Mao Zedong, Spain's Francisco Franco and Syria's Hafez Assad all died in power. Enver Hoxha of Albania and Augusto Pinochet of Chile arranged comfortable retirements before handing over power.
The global record of bringing tyrants to justice has been mixed.
Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic stood before an international tribunal to answer for his regime, but he died before a verdict could be rendered.
Liberia's Charles Taylor has been indicted for war crimes in neighboring Sierra Leone and awaits trial.
Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega is serving a 40-year term in a federal prison in Miami for racketeering, drug trafficking and money-laundering after U.S. troops entered his country and arrested him in 1989.
But history's master tyrant, Adolf Hitler, escaped retribution by committing suicide in Berlin before Soviet troops could capture him in 1945.
Pol Pot, whose Khmer Rouge regime was responsible for the deaths of up to 2 million Cambodians, died in the jungle in 1998 as remnants of his vanquished movement were preparing to hand him over to an international court.
For dictators, great power entails great risk. The price for years spent firmly in the saddle can be high.
For nearly 25 years, Nicolae Ceausescu wielded vast powers as the Communist boss of Romania, even defying the Kremlin, which tolerated him because of his firm hold over his people. Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, were executed by a firing squad on Christmas Day 1989 after revolutionaries toppled his regime.
That seemed like a merciful end compared with that of Samuel Doe, the shy, soft-spoken master sergeant who overthrew Liberian President William Tobert in 1980.
Power and corruption soon got the best of him and after 10 years of dictatorial rule, Doe was himself overthrown — tortured, mutilated and brutally slain.
More fortunate are those who can call on a foreign leader for a safe haven once their regime is on the rocks.
Idi Amin, who as president of Uganda ordered the massacre of thousands of his countrymen and impoverished his people, managed to get away to Libya after neighboring Tanzania overthrow his regime in 1979. Amin later settled in Saudi Arabia, where he died in 2003.
Ethiopia's Col. Mengistu Haile Mariam escaped to Zimbabwe in 1991 as rebels led by ethnic minority Tigreans closed in on his capital, ending a 17-year dictatorship notorious for its bloody purges.
Mengistu has a luxury villa, bodyguards and a pension — payback for having provided Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe with arms, money and training facilities during the 1972-80 war to end white rule in former Rhodesia.
Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier of Haiti used his family's longtime ties to France to escape retribution when the Haitian military ousted his regime in 1986.
"Baby Doc" was named president for life at age 19 following the 1971 death of his father, Francois, "Papa Doc," who had ruled with the help of the notorious paramilitary Tonton Macoutes.
Despite promises to liberalize, the younger Duvalier muzzled the press, wrecked the economy and ordered the torture and killing of hundreds of political prisoners, finally provoking mass protests and a coup that chased him from the country.
Jean-Bedel Bokassa of the Central African Republic wasn't so lucky. One of Africa's most ruthless dictators, Bokassa was ousted in a French-backed coup in 1979 after a bizarre 13-year rule that included proclaiming himself Emperor Bokassa I.
Bokassa was accused of killing and eating those who dared criticize him. His purported crimes included the 1979 massacre of 100 children who complained about school uniforms they were required to buy from his factory.
After seven years in luxurious exile in Ivory Coast and France, Bokassa returned to Central African Republic in 1987 expecting to be welcomed. Instead, he became the first deposed African chief of state to be publicly tried on charges of murder, torture and cannibalism.
He was acquitted of cannibalism charges, but convicted of murder and sentenced to death. The sentence was commuted to 20 years in prison, and he was freed in September 1993.
Bokassa died three years later and was honored with a state funeral.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061229/ap_on_re_mi_ea/saddam_other_dictators