‘Saddam deserves to die 100 times’

BAGHDAD – Saddam Hussein has confessed to carrying out executions and should be hanged “20 times”, his successor as Iraq’s president said on Tuesday while confirming that he will not sign a death warrant himself.

“I met the investigator who questioned Saddam,” Jalal Talabani said in an interview in Iraqiya state television late on Tuesday. “He said he had extracted important confessions from Saddam Hussein and he signed them.”Asked about the confessions, Talabani replied: “About the crimes he committed: he confessed to al-Anfal and the executions,” adding that Saddam had said: “The orders were released by me.”Al Anfal was a campaign against the Kurds between 1986 and 1989 in which over 100 000 people are said to have been killed and many villages destroyed.”Saddam deserves a death sentence 20 times a day because he tried to assassinate me 20 times,” Talabani said, recalling his own days as a Kurdish rebel leader fighting the Baghdad authorities.It was not clear what details Talabani had of a legal process that is intended to be separate from Iraqi politics.”There are 100 reasons to sentence Saddam to death,” he said, two days after the Shi’ite- and Kurdish-led government confirmed that the deposed leader will go on trial on October 19, along with several aides, accused of killing 143 Shi’ite villagers after a failed assassination bid at Dujail in 1982.Last week, Iraq hanged the first three criminals to be sentenced to death since Saddam’s overthrow by US forces.In that case, too, Talabani refused to sign the warrant but handed responsibility to his Shi’ite vice president, Adel Abdel Mehdi.He explained his stance by saying that as leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan he had once signed up his left-wing party to an international ban on capital punishment.”My not signing does not mean that I will block the decision of the court,” Talabani said, while stressing that political pressure would play no part in the judges’ decision.Saddam’s main lawyer, Khalil al-Dulaimi, complained after meeting his client on Monday that the October 19 trial date had not been agreed through the Special Tribunal set up to try Saddam and his closest associates.”Setting a date for the trial within days, weeks or months is unacceptable because the court alleges that it has 36 tonnes of documents and the defence team cannot come to the trial without studying what the court has of evidence,” Dulaimi told Reuters on Monday after he had met Saddam near Baghdad.It seems likely, however, that Saddam will go on trial on October 19.The process, for the killings at Dujail, will therefore start days after a referendum on a new constitution that the US-backed authorities intend should bury his legacy.The trial may stir passions among some minority Sunni Arabs, who dominated Iraq under Saddam and before.- Nampa-Reuters”He said he had extracted important confessions from Saddam Hussein and he signed them.”Asked about the confessions, Talabani replied: “About the crimes he committed: he confessed to al-Anfal and the executions,” adding that Saddam had said: “The orders were released by me.”Al Anfal was a campaign against the Kurds between 1986 and 1989 in which over 100 000 people are said to have been killed and many villages destroyed.”Saddam deserves a death sentence 20 times a day because he tried to assassinate me 20 times,” Talabani said, recalling his own days as a Kurdish rebel leader fighting the Baghdad authorities.It was not clear what details Talabani had of a legal process that is intended to be separate from Iraqi politics.”There are 100 reasons to sentence Saddam to death,” he said, two days after the Shi’ite- and Kurdish-led government confirmed that the deposed leader will go on trial on October 19, along with several aides, accused of killing 143 Shi’ite villagers after a failed assassination bid at Dujail in 1982.Last week, Iraq hanged the first three criminals to be sentenced to death since Saddam’s overthrow by US forces.In that case, too, Talabani refused to sign the warrant but handed responsibility to his Shi’ite vice president, Adel Abdel Mehdi.He explained his stance by saying that as leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan he had once signed up his left-wing party to an international ban on capital punishment.”My not signing does not mean that I will block the decision of the court,” Talabani said, while stressing that political pressure would play no part in the judges’ decision.Saddam’s main lawyer, Khalil al-Dulaimi, complained after meeting his client on Monday that the October 19 trial date had not been agreed through the Special Tribunal set up to try Saddam and his closest associates.”Setting a date for the trial within days, weeks or months is unacceptable because the court alleges that it has 36 tonnes of documents and the defence team cannot come to the trial without studying what the court has of evidence,” Dulaimi told Reuters on Monday after he had met Saddam near Baghdad.It seems likely, however, that Saddam will go on trial on October 19.The process, for the killings at Dujail, will therefore start days after a referendum on a new constitution that the US-backed authorities intend should bury his legacy.The trial may stir passions among some minority Sunni Arabs, who dominated Iraq under Saddam and before.- Nampa-Reuters