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March 9 - The Iraqi judge who sentenced Saddam Hussein to death has fled Iraq and sought asylum in the UK.

Al Jazeera's correspondent in London quoted British official sources as saying that Raouf Abdel-Rahman, a member of Iraq's Kurdish minority, has requested political asylum in Britain with his family.

Abdel-Rahman headed the Supreme Iraq Criminal Tribunal that heard Saddam's genocide trial and found the former Iraqi president guilty, leading to his execution.

Saddam was accused of killing more than a hundred Shia in the village of Dujail following a failed assassination attempt on him.

Saddam was hanged in the early hours of December 30. Lagi di alJazeera

Labels: Iraq, Luar Negeri, Saddam

BAGHDAD (Jan 15, 2007): Saddam Hussein's half-brother and the chief judge under Saddam's regime were hanged early today after they were convicted with the former Iraqi dictator of a 1982 massacre of 148 Shia Muslims.

The executions of Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, former head of Iraq's intelligence service, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, former head of Iraq's revolutionary court, were carried out before dawn, CNN,al-Jazeera and the BBC reported.

The excutions, coming two weeks after Saddam was put to death, were carried out about 5am (0200 GMT), CNN said, citing Badee Aref, a defence attorney for several officials in Saddam'sregime.

The three men were found guilty in November in the killings in the city of Dujail, which were carried out in retaliation for a plot to assassinate Saddam.

Today's hangings were carried out despite international appeals to halt them, including from UN secretary-general Ban Ki Moon, the European Union and human-rights groups that argued the trial was flawed and unfair.

Iraqi president Jalal Talabani also urged the government last week to put off the hangings.

They followed an uproar over Saddam's Dec 30 execution. Videos showing Saddam, a Sunni, being taunted by Shiites during the hanging were disseminated via mobile phones, on the Internet and shown on TV.

The scenes, which included shouts against Saddam and for Shiite and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr, were condemned internationally and provoked anger among Sunnis. - dpa

Labels: Berita, Iraq, Luar Negeri, Saddam

300 stage a symbolic Beirut funeral for Saddam

Labels: Berita, Lebanon, Luar Negeri, Saddam

Iraq PM: “Sunnis stoke tension”
Agencies, 5 January

Nuri al-Maliki, Iraq's prime minister, has accused an influential Sunni Muslim clerics' group of stoking tension by saying that armed groups were preparing to attack Sunni neighbourhoods in Baghdad.

The Muslim Clerics' Association (MCA) said in a statement on Thursday that fighters linked to an unnamed political group were planning attacks.

Al-Maliki's office said on Friday: "The statement from the Muslim Clerics' Association is totally baseless and raises tension, and we hold the Muslim Clerics responsible for any action that results from this."

Sectarian tension has been high in Iraq since the hanging of Saddam Hussein, the former Iraqi president, on Saturday.

Violence feared

The statement of the MCA, an umbrella grouping of Sunni religious leaders, did not identify the armed groups or say they were Shia.

However, the suggestion in the statement that the fighters had links to government parties is a strong indication to Iraqis that it was accusing Shia groups.

After al-Maliki rushed through the hanging of Saddam, a Sunni, and a video circulation showed the former Iraqi leader being taunted on the gallows by Shias, there have been fears of sectarian violence in the capital.

But there were no reports from Baghdad on Friday of anything out of the ordinary.

Mubarak anger

Hosni Mubarak, Egypt's president, has strongly condemned the conduct and timing of Saddam's execution at the start of a Muslim religious festival and questioned the legality of the sentence, passed by an Iraqi court while the country itself is under US control.

In an interview published on Friday in the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot, Mubarak said that when it became clear that the hanging was imminent, he sent a message to George Bush, the US president, asking that it not be carried out during the Eid al-Adha holiday.

Mubarak said: "Don't do it at this time. Why is it necessary to hang (him) just at the time when people are saying the holiday prayers."

He said the insensitive timing was then followed by the clandestine video showing "shocking pictures, primitive pictures" of Saddam being taunted by his Iraqi guards and then dangling from a rope.

Mubarak said: "It was disgraceful and very painful. I'm not going to say whether Saddam deserved the death penalty or not, I'm also not going to go into the question of whether that court is legal under the occupation.

"When all's said and done, nobody will ever forget the circumstances and the manner in which Saddam was executed. They have made him into a martyr, while the problems within Iraq remain."

Iran accusation

In a separate development, Ahmad Khatami, an influential Iranian cleric, has accused the United States of wanting to use Saddam's execution to stoke tensions between Shia and Sunni Muslims.

Khatami told worshippers at Friday prayers, in a sermon broadcast on state radio, that: "America's method is to start sectarian differences. They want to use Saddam's death to portray divisions among Shias and Sunnis.

"Do not doubt that the enemy's plan in Iraq and Iran is to inflame differences among Shias and Sunnis. In Iran and Iraq, for years, Shias and Sunnis have been living together peacefully."

Khatami is member of the Assembly of Experts, a clerical body, and a regular leader of Friday prayers in the capital, Tehran.

Saddam, who was executed on Saturday, was tried in a US-sponsored court but the US military said it had no role in the hanging and would have handled it differently.

Labels: Berita, Iraq, Luar Negeri, Saddam

The murder of ex-President Saddam Hussein in Baghdad was perhaps the worst example of political blindness shown by the inept, incompetent and incapacitated Bush regime.

From the beginning, the war in Iraq lacked one fundamental precept: legality. From the beginning, the kangaroo court hurriedly set up to try Saddam Hussein and other members of the Ba’athist Party lacked one fundamental precept: legality, as expressed by numerous international experts.

From the very beginning, the foreign policy launched by the Bush regime (the lies of Colin Powell at the UNO, the lies of George Bush, who knew not only that Iraq had WMD but even knew exactly where they were, the shock and awe campaign which was no more than a criminal act of butchery) proved to be wholly out of tune with the rest of Humankind, a sort of Hitlerian spasm which humanity appears to suffer from every so many years.

The criminal act of invading a sovereign nation outside the UN auspices, of targeting civilian structures with military hardware, of removing a State so irresponsibly, has sent Iraqi society back three centuries in three years. Women, for instance, have lost any rights they gained under Saddam, and now are unable to venture out without a veil and religion is no longer a private matter, but a cause to be killed for, while the Kurds fight to keep Saria law out of their constitution. This is the Iraq of George Bush.

Sectarian violence is rife and increasing and civilian casualties are reaching shocking proportions of tens of thousands a year. So what did the Bush regime wish to achieve with the murder of Saddam Hussein?

Does George Bush believe that two wrongs make a right? He should know, after all Saddam Hussein was hanged for signing 148 death warrants for high treason, while George Bush signed 152 as Governor of Texas, for lesser crimes.

With the Sunni community deploring this wanton act of cruelty and the Shiite community celebrating, how much nearer to open civil war does the Bush regime wish to push Iraq?

The hurried way in which Saddam Hussein was dispatched raises the suspicion that there was something to hide. After all, why were we not shown the footage of the trial? Why did 99 per cent of the proceedings take place in secrecy? What did Saddam Hussein say in his defence? Who sold him the weapons? Who sold him the gas? Upon whose orders? Did Iraq gas the Kurds or was it some other neighbouring state with a Kurdish question to solve at a moment when it would be easy to blame someone else?

These are questions to which we will never know the answer because the Government of the United States of America was unable or unwilling to face the truth. The murder of Saddam Hussein was therefore a criminal act of cowardice which created a martyr out of a man who could easily have been portrayed as a monster and which underlines the criminal, murderous traits of George Bush the man and the Presidency of the USA today. The monster, after all, sits in the Oval Office, Washington, the scene of many lurid acts in recent years. // Pravda.RU

Labels: Analisis, Iraq, Luar Negeri, Saddam

Omar Al-Faris - JUS Baghdad Correspondent

Two daily newspapers, the al-Riadh and al-Watan, both Saudi media outlets quote as source some eye witnesses claiming that Shiite Cleric Moqtada al-Sadr was one of the henchman at Saddam Hussein’s very public hanging but be careful of what you read.

The papers quote eye witnesses, in particular one who claims the leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution was also present.

"I saw al-Sadr wearing the black hoods inside the room and there was also Abdulaziz al-Hakim [leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq – SCIRI]. They were among the six men wearing hoods that one can see in the images aired by the TV", the eyewitness said.

To see personally the killing of Saddam Hussein before the end of the year would have been, according to Riyadh’s newspaper, al-Sadr’s condition to the Iraqi PM Nuri al-Maliki to keep staying inside the government. Other testimonies claim that the men wearing hoods were praising Moqtada al-Sadr that also appears in some mobile phone’s images. These men would have arrived on the place of the execution accompanied by a high political figure. According to al-Watan that quotes as sources some internet websites close to the Iraqi resistance, al-Sadr would be the man in the video wearing the hood right behind Saddam Hussein just before he was put the hangman’s noose. Asked by the same newspapers about these testimonies, the al-Sadr movement’s leaders deny any involvement in Saddam Hussein’s execution and say that the Moqtada chants were the personal initiative of the prison’s guards.

While Saddam’s fate was entirely his own doing and a fitting end to those rulers who collaborate at the expense of their own citizens with the US, the Sadr hand ads a nice twist. Arab rulers, and the public at large for that matter, should know by now that America giveth and America taketh away entirely on its own whim and agenda. Before we go jumping to conclusions, it should be noted that Sadr’s alleged involvement by the two Saudi newspapers could be yet another effort to stir up sectarian violence in Iraq. The Saud regime needs the US to stay inside the Kingdom to protect it from its won people and will stop at nothing to convince their US masters to stay on in Iraq.

So before we take all we read to seriously, let us remember that it is not only the US that has an agenda, but also the House of Saud. Furthermore, the matter of Hussein has been laid to rest and it has no bearing on the jihad and the Great Battle of Baghdad that lies ahead. (JUS)

Labels: Berita, Iraq, Luar Negeri, Saddam

At long last they have done it. Done away with the President of Iraq, hanged before dawn on Eid. While one may or may not consider the death sentence as appropriate to Mr. Hussein, the question is do the people behind this act have any moral right for that? When I mention the people behind this act I do not mean the puppet regime but the Czar of all evils, Mr. Bush and his cohorts. If he had been tried before an independent court under a sovereign regime then it would have been different. But the trial carried out in this case was nothing but a shameless farce.

The reason given was the atrocities committed by Mr. Saddam Hussein during his rule over Iraq. Well, is he alone? What about the atrocities committed by other dictators around the world? Hosni Mubarak and other allies of U.S. who have done and are doing things that can only be considered crimes against humanity. How many of these are democracies? How many of these regimes respect human rights? And how many of these regimes receive American aid? There in lies the hypocrisy.

How about Israel? Over the years how many thousands have been massacred in Palestine?

Picture: Saddam Hussein moments before being hanged in Baghdad (AFP)

Remember Sabra and Shatila massacres? Will the U.S. have the spine to prosecute the Israeli leaders behind these horrible acts? Almost all Israeli Prime Ministers would have to face the death sentence as since the inception of the Zionist rule the murder of occupied population has been a daily occurrence.

Now let's have a look at the U.S. history. Was Truman ever tried for dropping atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki? What about the massacres of the Red Indians for the very establishment of white rule in Americas? Was anyone ever punished for the kidnappings, torture, killings and enslavement of blacks by the early settlers?

In the recent history: the Vietnam War, Korean War, Attack on Libya, Iraqi Occupation, Afghanistan invasion and numerous other violent acts by the U.S. have gone unquestioned. How come nobody is asking for the head of those responsible for all these horrendous acts?

Another question we need to ask is, wasn't America an ally of Saddam Hussein when he was said to be doing all these terrorist acts? On who's side was America when Saddam attacked Iran? Will America ever publish the details of weapons and other materials of violence they have supplied Saddam? Answer is anybody's guess. This is a nation which has adopted intimidation, violence and hypocrisy as policies of state.

Saddam was hanged for the death of 145 Shias. He may have been responsible for the death of few more thousands. But what about Mr. Bush? His invasion of Iraq alone has killed more than 650,000 people including children and women. If we count the death toll of Afghanistan invasion, Israeli aggression against Lebanon and Palestine, with the active support of U.S. president, then we will realize that we are looking at probably the worst killer in the history of mankind. One who is even worse than Hitler, Pharaoh and Genghis Khan. The Truth is for the last six years the White house has become the citadel of the Satan.

The day of Eid was intentionally selected to provoke and humiliate Muslims, to show to the rest of the world that they can do almost anything and get away with it. But the sad fact is that this very act will cost Americans dearly. Without doubt the extremist elements are going to enjoy a great harvest. This in turn will result in increased violence against Americans and other westerners.

We all need to realize that the present American ruling establishment is not an enemy of Muslims alone but of the whole civilized world. Its moronic and pompous acts will lead the entire world to its doom. The leaders of the world and the American public should not ignore the writing on the wall anymore. If you do so, then you are digging your own grave.

Labels: Analisis, Iraq, Luar Negeri, Saddam

Conflicting reports are coming out on when Saddam Hussein's half-brother and a former judge, convicted along with him for crimes against humanity, will be executed.

While an unnamed official at the prime minister's office said he would be executed on Thursday, another said no date had been set.

Sami Al-Askari, a senior aide to Nuri al-Maliki said: "Most probably they will be executed next week after the holiday."

Picture: Awad al-Bander, front left, and Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, back right, are sentenced to be hanged

Al-Arabiya satellite television and Al-Furat TV, run by Iraq's major Shia Muslim political organisation, also reported that Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, Saddam's half brother and a former intelligence chief, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the former chief justice of the Revolutionary Court, will be hanged at dawn on Thursday.

Saddam was hanged on Saturday, the first day of the Eid al-Adha holiday, just four days after the failure of their appeal.

Wednesday is the last day of the religious holiday for Shias in Iraq, but the government has declared a public holiday lasting until Saturday.

Before Saddam's hanging, there were conflicting reports about when it would happen and the government took the final decision only a few hours before the execution.

No second term

Nuri al-Maliki, now under heavy criticism for his handling of Saddam's execution, has said he has no interest in a second term and wished he could be done before the end of his current term.

Al Jazeera correspondent Hoda Abd al-Hamid reported that a mobile phone video of Saddam's hanging has caused the Iraqi prime minister much more trouble than was expected.

"There have been many calls within his coalition to change the prime ministry and to form a new government. He now has to make more effort to bring the Sunnis back into the power structure especially after the leaked video and he has to explain to Iraqis why the video was leaked."

Some supporters of the execution said that the video was released with the intention of creating greater sectarian divides in the country and there are rumours of some people within his coalition trying to form another government.

Asked whether he would accept a second term, Maliki said in an interview published on Tuesday by the Wall Street Journal: "Impossible."

"I didn't want to take this position. I only agreed because I thought it would serve the national interest, and I will not accept it again."

His term is intended to be four years, but it could be cut short by a power shift in parliament. alJazeera.net

Labels: Berita, Iraq, Luar Negeri, Saddam

The person believed to have recorded Saddam Hussein's execution on a mobile phone has been arrested.

An adviser to Nuri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, did not identify the person. But he said it was "an official who supervised the execution" and who is "now under investigation".

Iraqi state television aired an official video of the hanging, which had no audio and never showed Saddam's actual death.

But the cell phone video showed the deposed leader being taunted in his final moments, with witnesses shouting "go to hell" before he dropped through the gallows floor.

The scene aired on Al Jazeera television was posted on the internet, prompting a worldwide outcry and protests.

Leaked video

Al-Maliki ordered his interior ministry to investigate who made the video and how it reached television and websites for public viewing.

An earlier US newspaper report said that Munqith al-Faroon, an Iraqi prosecutor that was present at the execution, identified the culprit.

"One of two men seen holding a cell phone camera aloft to make a video of Mr. Hussein's last moments ... was Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Mr. Maliki's national security adviser," he was alleged as saying.

On Wednesday however, al-Faroon denied reports that he had accused the country's national security adviser of the responsibility for the leaked video.

"I am not accusing Mowaffak al-Rubaie [the national security adviser], and I did not see him taking pictures," he said.

"I saw two of the government officials who were ... present during the execution taking all the video of the execution, using the lights that were there for the official taping of the execution.

"They used mobile phone cameras. I do not know their names, but I would remember their faces," al-Faroon said.

Smuggled

The prosecutor said the two officials were openly taking video pictures, which are believed to be those which appeared within hours of Saddam's execution shortly before dawn on Saturday.

Al-Faroon said there were 14 Iraqi officials, including himself and another prosecutor, as well as three hangmen present for the execution.

All the officials were flown by US helicopter to the former military intelligence facility where Saddam was put to death in an execution chamber used by his own security men for years.

Labels: Berita, Iraq, Luar Negeri, Saddam

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday that the execution of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein showed the true nature of the United States policies.

"The execution showed that the final destiny of relying on the US is not suitable," Ahmadinejad said in a speech in Ahvaz, southern Iran, broadcast live on the news network Khabar.

While referring to the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, the president said that the US fully supported and encouraged Saddam as long as he was standing against Iran's Islamic revolution but later dropped him "after he was no longer of any use."

He said that also the late Iranian king Mohammad-Reza Pahlavi had the same destiny and "eventually perished in humiliating exile."

"The regional states should learn a lesson and like Iran, solely rely on the will of its people rather on corrupt powers," Ahmadinejad said.

Iranian Parliament Speaker Gholam-Hossein Hadad-Adel on Tuesday welcomed the execution of Saddam but said the former dictator "was killed to save the US."

Tehran believes that Saddam's swift execution was aimed at not allowing him to disclose the alleged US role or even approval of some of the late Iraqi leader's crimes in the 1980s.

Labels: Berita, Iraq, Luar Negeri, Saddam

Those close to him said he had wanted to die with dignity. Within a day, a million people had seen an illicit film of his last moments

None of the images was part of the “official” footage filmed from the top of the gallows, which was aired on Iraqi state television and beamed around the world. In Iraq the other footage, which was filmed on a mobile phone, was being swapped on handsets for 20p and soon spread around the world on the internet.

At the height of his power Saddam had always had himself filmed in military uniform with shiny epaulets or standing on a balcony firing a gun — an image that would play again and again on state television in homage to his self-declared greatness. Just before sunrise on Saturday, a witness to the former Iraqi President’s death filmed his ignonimous end using the phone. Hours later the grainy, darkly lit footage was on the internet.

In a former military intelligence building, now an Iraqi prison, Saddam was sandwiched between two stout men in black hoods who guided him to the gallows. He bundled himself in a dark overcoat to warm himself in the December cold in Baghdad and stood on an elevated platform with its rusty metal bars. Beneath the coat was the white shirt and black blazer and trousers that he had worn throughout his trial on charges of crimes against humanity.

The two hangmen lifted the thick hemp noose over his neck and Saddam stood passively, his piercing brown eyes indicating a flicker of fear.

“Ya Allah [Oh God],” he said. The room’s 15 witnesses roared back: “Peace to be upon Muhammad and his followers. Peace be upon Muhammad and his followers.” Their voices rose in glee and some added a rallying cry belonging to the followers of the radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose militia movement has helped to fuel Baghdad’s current sectarian bloodletting. “And quicken his [the Mahdi’s] appearing and curse on his enemy,” and then one zealous spectator shouted: “And support his son Moqtada Moqtada Moqtada.”

Ignoring the baying crowd, Saddam, whose dyed black hair was askew, pretended that he misheard the young cleric’s name, whose movement in its violence is reminiscent of Saddam’s own ruthless Baathist cells that paved his way to power. Saddam smirked at his tormentors.

A voice shouted back: “Long live Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr”, the name of the ayatollah who helped to found the Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Dawa party and was murdered by Saddam in 1980.

“To Hell,” another spectator bellowed. The scene had begun to resemble a medieval execution or a wild hanging in Texas. “Please stop, the man is being executed, please stop,” one witness shouted over the clamour. Saddam peered down at the mob and then recited the shahada. His skin was wrinkled; he looked tired and knew the end was near.

“God is great and Muhammad is His prophet,” he said and started to repeat the phrase intended to ensure one dies a good Muslim and goes to paradise. But the trapdoor opened and his body plummeted. His neck snapped.

“Peace be upon Muhammad and his followers,” some shouted. “The tyrant is gone,” another cried. Pandemonium reigned in the shadowy room. A voice interjected: “Leave him for eight minutes. No one pulls him down. Leave him for eight minutes . . . .Everyone back please, everyone back.” Saddam’s body swung beneath the trap door, eyes partly open, and his neck crooked, like his many nameless victims. He swung like the corpses of those who had been executed in his name in prisons across Iraq throughout the Baath party’s 35-year reign.

Those close to him said he had known for months that the end was coming and had no illusions that he would survive. But he wanted his dignity. The man whose vanity led him to portray himself as the defender of the Arab world was determined to get the better of his adversaries. He refused their offers of cigarettes and a last meal of chicken. When the hangmen took Saddam into an unheated room before Judge Munir Haddad, one of the nine judges who had upheld his death sentence on Tuesday for the killing of 148 Shia villagers from Dujail, north of Baghdad, after a 1982 assassination attempt on his life, the man did not panic and chastised his enemies.

“I read the death sentence to him and asked him if he wanted to say anything or has any final words. Then he said: “I commend you to adhere to liberality and to beware of the Persians,” Mr Haddad told The Times. Mr Haddad asked him if he had any final request and Saddam asked him to hand his Koran to the son of Awad al-Bandar, the former judge who had also been sentenced to death for sanctioning the killing of the Dujail villagers. Mr Bandar’s son, Badr, has served on the defence team for Saddam and his six co-defendants. Saddam then went readily to the execution room. “He looked very calm and quiet and wasn’t shaking or afraid at all and was walking very normally but his face became pale when they took him to the other room but he was very calm,” Mr Haddad said. baca keseluruhan.

Labels: Berita, Iraq, Luar Negeri, Saddam

PRESS STATEMENT
BY TUN DR. MAHATHIR MOHAMAD

The Barbaric Lynching of President Saddam Hussein

On the Holy day of Eid, the world watched in horror at the barbaric lynching of President Saddam Hussein of Iraq, allegedly for crimes against humanity. This public murder was sanctioned by the War Criminals, President Bush and Prime Minister Blair.

This sadistic act broadcasted to the whole world is a travesty of justice, and was meant to demonstrate the imperial power of the United States and serves as a warning to peace loving peoples that we must either bow to the dictates of the Bush regime or face the consequences of a public lynching.

The lynching was also an insult to all Muslims, as it occurred on the Holy Day of Eid, whereby Muslims devote themselves to prayer and forgiveness. It is all too clear that the war criminal Bush has no sensitivities whatsoever for Muslims on their pilgrimage to Mecca. This barbaric act is a sacrilege!

The entire trial process was a mockery of justice, no less a Kangaroo Court. Defence counsels were brutally murdered, witnesses threatened and judges removed for being impartial and replaced by puppet judges. Yet, we are told that Iraq was invaded to promote democracy, freedom and justice.

A peaceful country has now been turned into a war zone. Over 500,000 children died as a result of the criminal economic sanctions, and the latest findings by the medical journal, Lancet reveals that over 650,000 Iraqis have died since the illegal invasion of 2003.

If we support human rights and justice, we must condemn this barbaric lynching of President Saddam Hussein. There can be no excuse whatsoever for this injustice under any circumstances. War Criminal Bush and the puppet regime in Iraq have made a mockery of the Rule of Law.

Labels: Berita, Iraq, Mahathir, Malaysia, Saddam