Hussein Sentenced To Death By Hanging

Photos
Saddam Hussein Is Sentenced to Death
The former Iraqi president and two co-defendents are found guilty for crimes against humanity as thousands take to street in Tikrit and other cities despite an all-day curfew imposed over security fears.

"Long live the nation! Down with the criminal invaders! Down with the spies! Down with the occupiers!" Hussein declared, thrusting his finger in the air, his body shaking with rage.

One of the Iraqi guards put his face within a few inches of Hussein's to watch the former leader's reaction as the death sentence was read. Smacking gum open-jawed, the guard smiled mockingly, then laughed.

"The court has decided to sentence Saddam Hussein al-Majid to death by hanging," Abdel-Rahman said.

"Go to hell! You and the court!" Hussein shouted. "You don't decide anything, you are servants of the occupiers and lackeys! You are puppets!"

"Take him out!" the judge shouted at the end of a declaration convicting Hussein on five of six charges of crimes against humanity.

"Long live the Kurds!" the 69-year-old leader shouted as the guards pulled him to the courtroom door. "Long live the Arabs!"

His co-defendants heard their fate with equal defiance. "It's all in the hand of the Almighty! It's all in the hands of the holy warriors!" shouted Taha Yassin Ramadan, a vice president under Hussein, as the guards pushed him out of the courtroom after his life sentence was announced.

Minutes earlier, at least six guards had surrounded former U.S. attorney general Ramsey Clark, one of the defense attorneys, and hustled him out of the courtroom. "Get him out! Get him out!" Abdel-Rahman shouted in English, outraged at a court filing submitted by Clark that apparently referred to the trial as a travesty. "He's coming from America to insult the Iraqi people and the court," the judge added in Arabic.

Above the courtroom, VIPs in a visitor's gallery hidden from view applauded when Clark was ejected. "God is greatest!" the unseen spectators cried later, when the first death sentence was announced. Officials said the spectators included some of the survivors of the campaign in Dujail as well as Iraq's current interior minister and other politicians.

The Shiite politicians who lead Iraq's coalition government went on television after the court session to congratulate the victims of Hussein and condemn his leadership. "The Saddam era is over, and his party has become part of the past," Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said on al-Iraqiya state television. Maliki's Dawa party carried out the 1982 assassination attempt in Dujail that led Hussein to order the executions.

Jubilant men and boys poured onto the streets of Shiite communities across southern and central Iraq, despite a curfew imposed to try to prevent violent reactions to the verdict. In Baghdad, officers in the Shiite-dominated police forces celebrated by handing out candy from their patrol vehicles and blaring cassettes hailing Shiite political leaders.

In the Shiite holy city of Najaf, in the south, the celebrating crowds included boys and young men marching in the old military uniforms of fathers allegedly killed by Hussein's government.