Saddam To Be Hanged!

Taken from Sky News, UK, 05.11.06

• AP VIDEO: Hussein Sentenced by Iraqi Tribunal

Saddam Hussein has been found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death.

The former dictator will be hanged, a court in Baghdad's Green Zone complex ruled.

Saddam was convicted of ordering the deaths of 148 Shia men and teenage boys in the town of Dujail in 1982.

The killings followed a failed assassination attempt against him in 1982 and were intended to act as a grim warning to others not to oppose him.

Facing charges alongside him were Taha Yassin Ramadan, a former vice-president, Barzan Ibrahim al Tikriti - Saddam's half-brother - former judge Awad Ahmad al Bander and four party officials from Dujail.

Security was stepped up in Baghdad in anticipation of a violent reaction to the announcement of the verdict.

Saddam, who was captured by US forces in December 2003, is still seen as the figurehead of many of the insurgent Sunni groups conducting a campaign of terror against Coalition troops and Iraqi civilians.

More than 100 US troops were killed in Iraq in October, making it one of the bloodiest months for American forces since the invasion in March 2003.

The civilian death toll is estimated at somewhere between 45,000 and more than 650,000.

Defence minister Abdul Qader al Obeidi cancelled all army leave and recalled security forces already on holiday.

The trial is the first that Saddam has faced in the wake of his downfall.

It has been punctuated by walkouts, boycotts, hunger-strikes by Saddam and his co-defendants, the murder of three lawyers and the sacking of the original trial judge, who announced in court that he did not believe Saddam was a dictator.

It is possible the former Iraqi president's other trials for genocide and war crimes could now be brought forward.

The death penalty in Iraq has to be carried out by hanging, according to the country's new constitution. However, Saddam has said he would rather face a firing squad.