[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 1

IRAQ:

Saddam 'does not fear execution'


Saddam Hussein does not fear execution and will either face the death
penalty for crimes against humanity or return as president of Iraq, one of
his lawyers said in Beirut on Wednesday.

"President Saddam Hussein does not fear execution," Lebanese lawyer Bushra
Khalil said, 4 days before an Iraqi court is due to issue a verdict on
whether Saddam and 7 co-defendants are guilty or innocent.

"He will not leave jail to count his days or years [in exile] in Qatar or
some other country," she told a press conference.

"Saddam Hussein will leave jail to go to 1 of 2 things: either the
presidency or the grave."

Khalil warned that a guilty verdict over the killing of 148 Shi'ite
villagers from the Iraqi village of Dujail, executed after a failed 1982
assassination attempt, could plunge Iraq and the region into violence.

"Any death sentence will be explosive for Iraq and the region. Any death
sentence will be hell for the United States army" in Iraq, she warned.

She did not say what Saddam sympathisers might have up their sleeves in a
country already wracked by unprecedented civil violence and with US
casualties at their highest in nearly 2 years.

If Saddam is sentenced to death, the defence team will appeal, said
Khalil.

It has drafted a letter to US President George Bush, warning of dire
consequences if Saddam is convicted.

In a copy of the letter received by Agence France Presse on Sunday, lead
Iraqi lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi also urged Bush to free Saddam and put an
end to the trial, which he described again as illegal and a farce.

Saddam himself wrote to the presiding judge, asking that the verdict not
be issued as scheduled on Sunday, just two days before the US midterm
congressional elections.

He warned that such a timing would reinforce Bush's Republican party in
the elections.

Khalil echoed that, saying Sunday's date for the verdict was proof that
the trial was being used by the Bush administration as "propaganda,
especially if there were a death sentence".

"A death sentence against president Saddam Hussein will have an important
electoral value, as it will help convince American voters that he [Bush]
has achieved his strategic objective by invading Iraq," she said.

(sources: Sapa & AFP)