Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's execution may be delayed until next year to allow for the appeals process, but once that has been exhausted and if the sentence is upheld, he will be hanged within 30 days.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani has said he will refuse to sign a death penalty, but would delegate that job to one of his deputies.
Under previous Iraqi law, the president had the authority to commute a death sentence, but a special law established for the tribunal which heard Saddam's case says "no authority, including the president of the republic, may grant a pardon or mitigate the punishment issued by the court."
Before any sentence is carried out, the convicted men and the prosecution can lodge an appeal against the verdict, the notification of which must be made within 15 days.
Saddam's legal team gave notice of their intention to appeal immediately following Sunday's verdict. They said they would launch their appeal yesterday.
APPEALS PANEL
A nine-member appeals panel will consider the application's merits according to whether there have been any errors of law, procedure or fact. Submission of briefs and oral arguments will be allowed.
Punishments must be carried within 30 days of the date when the judgment becomes final. But court officials say the appeals chamber may not issue its decision until next spring.
During the trial, Saddam had demanded that he face a firing squad.
"Saddam Hussein is a military commander and should be shot by bullets," he said.
But officials at the Iraqi High Tribunal say he is being tried as a civilian, and under the law that means he faces hanging.
Paragraph 86 of the Iraqi penal code says: "The death penalty is the hanging of the condemned person by the neck until he is dead."
The judge who presided over the first half of the Dujail trial, Rizgar Amin, said any executions would probably be carried out in prison.
"There must be a prosecutor, a judge, a doctor, the prison director and a representative of the interior ministry present," Amin said. "The condemned can also ask a member of the clergy to attend."
REQUIREMENTS
The prison authorities are also required to inform the relatives of the condemned person so that they can visit on the day before execution which cannot be carried out on an official or religious holiday.
The condemned person has the right to a final statement, which the judge must record.
Once sentence has been carried out the body is either given to relatives, or buried by the prison authorities at government expense, but with no funeral ceremony.
Saddam and six other former Baath party officials, including Ali Hassan al-Majid or "Chemical Ali," also face genocide charges over the killing of at least 50,000 people during the Anfal operation against the Kurds in 1988.
Dujail was chosen as the first and most straightforward of a dozen dossiers being prepared for trial by the Iraqi High Yribunal.
They include the gassing of Kurds in Halabja -- both of which occurred during the last stages of the Iran-Iraq war, when the UK and the US were supporting the Saddam regime, the invasion and occupation of Kuwait and the suppression of the 1991 Shiite uprising.
It remains unclear whether any of the outstanding cases will make it to court, or whether Saddam will be around to see them.
Chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi told reporters that the Anfal trial now in progress for Saddam and others alleged role in gassing and killing Kurds would continue while the Dujail appeals process is under way.
PARLIAMENT CHAOS: Police forcibly removed Brazilian Deputy Glauber Braga after he called the legislation part of a ‘coup offensive’ and occupied the speaker’s chair Brazil’s lower house of Congress early yesterday approved a bill that could slash former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s prison sentence for plotting a coup, after efforts by a lawmaker to disrupt the proceedings sparked chaos in parliament. Bolsonaro has been serving a 27-year term since last month after his conviction for a scheme to stop Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office after the 2022 election. Lawmakers had been discussing a bill that would significantly reduce sentences for several crimes, including attempting a coup d’etat — opening up the prospect that Bolsonaro, 70, could have his sentence cut to
A powerful magnitude 7.6 earthquake shook Japan’s northeast region late on Monday, prompting tsunami warnings and orders for residents to evacuate. A tsunami as high as three metres (10 feet) could hit Japan’s northeastern coast after an earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 7.6 occurred offshore at 11:15 p.m. (1415 GMT), the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said. Tsunami warnings were issued for the prefectures of Hokkaido, Aomori and Iwate, and a tsunami of 40cm had been observed at Aomori’s Mutsu Ogawara and Hokkaido’s Urakawa ports before midnight, JMA said. The epicentre of the quake was 80 km (50 miles) off the coast of
China yesterday held a low-key memorial ceremony for the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not attending, despite a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo over Taiwan. Beijing has raged at Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month said that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Japan. China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history. China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital. A post-World War II Allied tribunal put the death toll
A passerby could hear the cacophony from miles away in the Argentine capital, the unmistakable sound of 2,397 dogs barking — and breaking the unofficial world record for the largest-ever gathering of golden retrievers. Excitement pulsed through Bosques de Palermo, a sprawling park in Buenos Aires, as golden retriever-owners from all over Argentina transformed the park’s grassy expanse into a sea of bright yellow fur. Dog owners of all ages, their clothes covered in dog hair and stained with slobber, plopped down on picnic blankets with their beloved goldens to take in the surreal sight of so many other, exceptionally similar-looking ones.
RSS