Saddam Guilty; Iraqi Court Sentences Former Leader to Death
By Jim Garamone American Forces Press Service
http://www.defenselink.mil/News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=2025
WASHINGTON, Nov. 5, 2006 – An Iraqi court sentenced Saddam Hussein to death today for ordering the execution of 148 men in Dujail, Iraq, in 1982.
Thousands of people in Baghdad took to the streets to celebrate the verdict. The Iraqi High Tribunal sentenced two other defendants to death and four to prison and acquitted one.
In anticipation of the verdict, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had imposed a curfew in Baghdad and two Diyala and Salaheddin provinces. The two provinces are primarily Sunni and were the base of Saddam’s support during his dictatorship. Shiite and Kurdish provinces were not under curfew.
"The Saddam Hussein era is in the past now, as was the era of Hitler and Mussolini," al-Maliki said following the verdict. "We want an Iraq where all Iraqis are equal before the law," he said. "The policy of discrimination and persecution is over."
U.S. forces captured Saddam hiding in a hole in the ground in December 2003. In a written statement, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad called the verdict “an important milestone for Iraq as the country takes another major step forward in the building of a free society based on the rule of law.”
Khalilzad said the verdicts demonstrate the commitment of the Iraqi people to hold the members of the former regime accountable for their actions.
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