California Conservative

That’s what an Iraqi judge ruled Tuesday, according to this AP article.

Iraq’s highest appeals court on Tuesday upheld Saddam Hussein’s death sentence and said he must be hanged within 30 days for the killing of 148 Shiites in the central city of Dujail. The sentence “must be implemented within 30 days,” chief judge Aref Shahin said. “From tomorrow, any day could be the day of implementation.”

It’s amazing that a court would rule that decisively and with that specificity. Let’s just say that that isn’t typical in American courts. This is further proof that the Iraqis are governing themselves within the framework of the constitution that they wrote and that they ratified.

Under Iraqi law, the appeals court decision must be ratified by President Jalal Talabani and Iraq’s two vice presidents. Talabani opposes the death penalty but has in the past deputized a vice president to sign an execution order on his behalf, a substitute that was legally accepted.

I can’t wait to watch this execution on TV or on the internet. If ever there was a man deserving of execution, the “Butcher of Baghdad” would certainly be at or near the top of the list. Based on all the mass graves that were found; based on all the heinous acts that he sanctioned on his own people during Operation Desert Storm, my only regret is that this didn’t happen 20 years sooner.

The appeals court also upheld death sentences for Barzan Ibrahim, Saddam’s half brother and intelligence chief during the Dujail killings, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, head of Iraq’s Revolutionary Court, which issued the death sentences against the Dujail residents. The appeals court concluded the sentence of life imprisonment given to former vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan was too lenient and returned his file to the High Tribunal. Ramadan was convicted of premeditated murder in the Dujail case. “We demand that he be sentenced to death,” said Shahin, the appeals judge.

It’s good to see that the Iraqis will finally get justice for the oppression they lived under Saddam’s tyrannical regime.

Technorati Tags: Saddam Hussein, Death Penalty, Mass Graves

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 27th, 2006 at 12:52 am and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, Corruption, Crime, Iraq, Judiciary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.