Saddam sentenced to death (1 Viewer)

[ur_inner_child]

Anger over how Saddam was hanged
January 2, 2007 - 10:58AM

The Iraqi government has launched an inquiry into how guards filmed and taunted Saddam Hussein on the gallows, turning his execution into a televised spectacle that has inflamed sectarian anger.

A senior Iraqi official told Reuters the US ambassador tried to persuade Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki not to rush into hanging the former president just four days after his appeal was turned down, urging the government to wait another two weeks.

News of the ousted strongman's death on Saturday and of his treatment by officials of the Shi'ite-led government was blamed by one witness for sparking a prison riot among mainly Sunni Arab inmates at a jail near the northern city of Mosul.

An adviser to Maliki, Sami al-Askari, said: "There were a few guards who shouted slogans that were inappropriate and that's now the subject of a government investigation."

The government released video showing the hangman talking to a composed Saddam as he placed the noose round his neck.

But mobile phone footage on the Web showed guards shouting "Go to hell!", chanting the name of a Shi'ite militia leader and exchanging insults with Saddam before he fell through the trap in mid-prayer and his body swung, broken-necked, on the rope.

Saddam's exiled eldest daughter and even some residents of Dujail, the Shi'ite town whose sufferings led to his conviction for crimes against humanity, joined mourning rituals for him, most of these concentrated among Sunni Arabs in Saddam's home region north of Baghdad where he was buried on Sunday.

Mourners continued to arrive at his native village of Awja, near Tikrit. His daughter Raghd, who helped finance his defence from her strictly supervised exile in Jordan, joined several hundred people in the capital Amman in a show of solidarity.

Iraqi troops and police rushed to Mosul's Padush prison to put down a riot after visitors broke news of Saddam's treatment. The governor said seven guards and three prisoners were injured although a visitor reported gunfire and the death of an inmate.

There has been no significant repeat of the series of car bombings that killed over 70 people in Shi'ite neighbourhoods on Saturday within hours of the dawn execution, but the government and U.S. forces are on alert for the kind of sectarian violence that has pitched Iraq toward civil war since Saddam's overthrow.

Interior ministry data showed the number of Iraqi civilians killed in political violence hit a new record high in December after a big leap the previous month. The statistics, almost certain to be an underestimate, showed 12,320 civilians were killed in 2006 in what officials termed "terrorist" violence.

The Interior Ministry ordered the closure of another Iraqi television channel, Sharkiya, accusing it of fomenting hatred. The channel, owned by a London-based businessman who was once an official under Saddam, continued broadcasting from Dubai.

The government has taken similar measures against several channels, all with perceived Sunni leanings. US President George W. Bush plans to unveil a new strategy this month after the 3,000th soldier to die in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion was killed just before New Year. At least 112 Americans died in December, the deadliest month for them in more than two years as they struggled to contain the bloodshed.

Two US soldiers died in an explosion on Sunday northeast of Baghdad. U.S. forces said they killed six insurgents in a raid on a suspected al Qaeda safe house in Baghdad.

While Saddam's sentencing and then death brought muted responses from most Sunnis, many have been particularly angered by video showing supporters of Shi'ite cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr chanting "Moqtada, Moqtada, Moqtada!" at him.

"Is this what you call manhood?" Saddam told them in reply.

Maliki adviser Askari said the government would look into how guards in the execution chamber, once used by Saddam's own feared secret police, had smuggled in a mobile phone camera.

Askari said: "They have damaged the image of the Sadrists. That should not have happened. Before we went into the room we had an agreement that no one should bring a mobile phone."

U.S. forces had declined to give Saddam to Iraqis for fear of abuses of his prisoner's rights. They only agreed to hand him over for execution hours before the unannounced hanging.

A government official involved in the talks told Reuters, on condition of anonymity, that U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad had urged Maliki to wait another two weeks, until after the long Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha, and had insisted on a variety of documents including approval from Iraq's Kurdish president.

"The Americans wanted to delay the execution by 15 days because they weren't keen on having him executed straight away," he said. "But ... the prime minister's office provided all the documents they asked for and the Americans changed their minds when they saw the prime minister was very insistent."

A US embassy spokesman declined immediate comment.

Senior Iraqi officials have forecast a limited New Year offensive by U.S.-led forces against Sadr's Mehdi Army. "There will be limited and targeted operations against members of the Mehdi Army," one senior Shi'ite official said.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/an...1167500098199.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

 

[Optophobia]

Terrorists hang people?

 

[S1M0]

Yet Israel has a higher GDP per capita than any Arab nation.

Remarkable considering that they're economy and wealth is almost entirely externally funded by rich Jewish Philantropists.

 

[Captain Gh3y]

The same ones who control all the world's banks and media along with the freemasons and the skull and bones society, right?

 

[snobby airlines]

I honestly can't understand how anyone can watch another human be executed. Have we really become that desensitised?

No matter how much of a tyrant someone is, noone deserves to go this way. As much as I despise the Israeli government I would never wish that upon any of them.
Is Saddam the only dictator that has destroyed his people? Why is this the first to happen? This is freakin disgusting...

I feel sick just thinking about it.

 

[withoutaface]

I honestly can't understand how anyone can watch another human be executed. Have we really become that desensitised?

No matter how much of a tyrant someone is, noone deserves to go this way. As much as I despise the Israeli government I would never wish that upon any of them.
Is Saddam the only dictator that has destroyed his people? Why is this the first to happen? This is freakin disgusting...

I feel sick just thinking about it.

I don't approve of the death penalty, but I can pretty much watch brutal decapitations without feeling squemish nowadays. God bless the internet.

 

[littlewing69]

I honestly can't understand how anyone can watch another human be executed. Have we really become that desensitised?

I watched it. It was fairly tame, considering. Anyhow, I'd prefer to know what was being done in our name (kinda) than pretend this shit doesn't happen.

 

[ur_inner_child]

Arrest over Saddam hanging video
January 4, 2007 - 8:22AM

The person believed to have video recorded Saddam Hussein's execution on a mobile phone has been arrested, an adviser to Iraq's Prime Minister said.

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 and swung dead at the end of a rope.

The unruly scene aired on Al-Jazeera television and was posted on the internet, prompting a worldwide outcry and big protests among Iraq's minority Sunnis, who lost their preferential status when Saddam was ousted in the US-led invasion of March 2003.

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

SMH Full Article

 

[P_Dilemma]

I find it strange they didn't use a higher quality camera to record this historic event.

-P_D

 

[snobby airlines]

I find it strange they didn't use a higher quality camera to record this historic event.

-P_D

If the person who recorded it got arrested for it, do you really think they'd allow anyone in with a video recorder? psht...obviously they had to keep it on the low.

 

[torrentperson]

Remarkable considering that they're [sic] economy and wealth is [sic] almost entirely externally funded by rich Jewish Philantropists [sic].

When they're not clandestinely controlling the U.S. government and paving the way for a New World Order, right? Seriously, though, what you wrote is too stupid for words. Israel does receive money from abroad and substantial aid from the U.S. (a similar amount to what Egypt gets), but these constitute a tiny fraction of its US$163 billion economy.

For your information:

"Israel is the most industrially and economically developed country in the Middle East. It has a technologically advanced market economy with substantial government participation. It depends on imports of fossil fuels (crude oil, natural gas, and coal), grains, beef, raw materials, and military equipment. Despite limited natural resources, Israel has intensively developed its agricultural and industrial sectors over the past 20 years. Israel is largely self-sufficient in food production except for grains and beef. Diamonds, high technology, military equipment, software, pharmaceuticals, fine chemicals, and agricultural products (fruits, vegetables and flowers) are leading exports. Israel usually posts sizable current account deficits, which are covered by large transfer payments from abroad and by foreign loans (although some economists would say the deficit is a sign of Israel's advancing markets). Israel possesses extensive facilities for oil refining, diamond polishing, and semiconductor fabrication. According to international data reported by the World Bank, Israel has the best regulations for businesses and strongest protections of property rights in the Greater Middle East." (Wikipedia, emphasis mine)

For example, Intel Israel designs Intel's mobile CPUs. Got a laptop with a Pentium M or a Core processor? Tip your hat to Israeli ingenuity.

 

[Serius]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZ3PZrCIWdA

lol alot of people are pretty happy about sadam getting killed, dont have much sympathy for him but on moral grounds i would have prefered it if he rotted in some shithole prison.

 

[Not-That-Bright]

Here's the video:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=4DQWO0YnoQI

I'll let people comment on that before I close this thread.