Posted: Sun Nov 05, 2006 9:10 am
Hussein Sentenced To Death for Crimes Against Humanity
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The Iraqi High Tribunal on Sunday cleared one of the eight defendants in the Dujail case.Mohammed Azzawi Ali, a former Dujail Baath Party official, was exonerated because, the court said, there was insufficient evidence against him.
The court has begun its session where it is issuing verdicts and sentences for Saddam Hussein and seven co-defendants in the Dujail case.
The defendants were filing into the courtroom to receive their sentences from a five-judge panel.
Defense attorney Ramsey Clark was also in court, but he was soon ousted by judges.
The court asked Clark to leave, saying he had come here from America to mock the Iraqi people and this court.
Hussein could be sentenced to death by hanging for his role in a brutal crackdown nearly 25 years ago in Dujail -- the once obscure Iraqi town that is now a symbol of his regime's cruelty.
The tribunal meeting in Baghdad to render verdicts for the co-defendants for their roles in a widescale, systematic attack on the Shiite town after someone tried to assassinate Hussein during a visit on July 8, 1982.
The prosecution is seeking the death penalty for the former dictator and two other defendants -- Barzan Hassan, Hussein's half-brother and former head of the intelligence agency, and Taha Yassin Ramadan, a former member of Hussein's Revolutionary Command Council.
Hussein, Hassan and Ramadan are charged with willful killing, deportation or forcible transfer of population; imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental norms of law; torture; enforced disappearance of persons, and other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering; or serious injury to the body or to the mental or physical health.
Source: http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/11/ ... index.html