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bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful
=== News Update ===
Why Hussein ultimately wins, and dies a martyr
Gwynne Dyer, is a London-based independent journalist
In an international court, his trial would have had credibility. The
trial in Iraq did not.
Occasionally, like any doomed man, Saddam Hussein played with the notion
of a last-minute reprieve.
"He's told us many times that we won't be able to" avoid a death
sentence in his trial, said Khalil al-Dulaimi, one of his lawyers, in
June.
"He knows that the sentence has been issued from Washington."
But at that point, he was still indulging in the fantasy that this was
part of an American plan to restore him to power. "He'll be the last
resort; they'll have to knock on his door," Dulaimi said. "The United
States will use this sentence to pressure Saddam to save it from this
mess."
By July, however, Hussein seemed to have accepted the fact that he was
going to be killed, for he asked the court that he be shot by firing
squad, as is the right of a military man, and not hanged like a common
criminal. More fantasy, since Hussein never served as a regular soldier.
On Sunday, the sentence of death by hanging was pronounced on Hussein
and two of his fellow defendants. He responded with a clearly rehearsed
tirade - "Long live Iraq! Long live the Iraqi people! Down with the
traitors!" - and then left the courtroom with a little smile playing on
his face, as if he had won. Which he had, within the narrow confines of
what remains possible for him.
Unless the second trial that is now under way on other charges takes
priority (which is not yet clear), it will take only 10 to 20 days for
an appeal to be considered by a panel of nine judges, and then the death
sentence must be carried out within 30 days. But Hussein still wins
because in the eyes of most Sunni Arabs in Iraq, and of many elsewhere,
he dies a martyr to the cause of Arab nationalism. His sons are dead,
his country is in ruins, and he will die at the end of a rope - but he
defied the West, and he kept his dignity, so he dies a hero.
He is not a hero, and Iraq would be a better place if he had never been
born. In any properly constituted international court, he would have
been found guilty of the same charges he faced in Iraq. But in an
international court, there would have been due process of law, and the
Iraqi government could not have replaced judges who wanted to respect
the rights of the defendants, and the defense lawyers would not have
been murdered. In an international court, Hussein's trial would have had
some credibility. The trial in Iraq did not.
The first chief judge, Rizgar Amin, resigned in January after government
complaints that he had failed to impose order in his court (i.e., had
allowed Hussein to speak in his own defense too often). Five weeks later
his successor, Sayeed al-Hammashi, was removed when it was discovered
that he had been a Baath Party member. And the chief judge appointed to
run the second trial, Abdullah al-Amiri, was removed in September for
being too sympathetic to Hussein.
Meanwhile, Hussein's defense lawyers died like flies. The first to go,
Saadoun Janabi, was "arrested" last year by men claiming to be from the
Shiite-controlled Interior Ministry police and later found dead in Sadr
City, the Shiite stronghold in Baghdad. The second, Adel al-Zubeidi, was
shot shortly afterward, whereupon another fled the country. And the
chief defense lawyer, Khamis al-Obaidi, was abducted in June. He, too,
was arrested by men in police uniforms, and his body was found, with
both arms broken and eight bullet wounds, dumped in the same place in
Sadr City.
After Obaidi's murder, Hussein's lawyers withdrew from the trial,
demanding that it be transferred outside Iraq, and Hussein himself went
on a hunger strike. He gave that up after 16 days of being force-fed by
tubes pushed up his nostrils and sat through the remainder of his trials
with no legal representation other than a court-appointed lawyer who
refused to be filmed or photographed, spoke through a microphone that
deliberately distorted his voice, and was rejected as "an enemy of the
people" by Hussein.
Hussein has not had a fair trial, although that, too, would certainly
have found him guilty. He is the victim of a state-sponsored lynching,
and so, for many people, he will die a martyr. That will make little
difference in Iraq, where people have more immediate things to worry
about, but it certainly does not help the cause of international law.
Contact Gwynne Dyer at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
source:
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/editorial/15946295.htm
===
-muslim voice-
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