Iraqi Court Upholds Hussein's Sentence

Some analysts in Baghdad questioned whether Hashemi would endorse the execution. But they also noted that he had recently called on President Bush at the White House.

If the government does not send Hussein to the gallows, the Iraqi High Tribunal's code would ensure his execution by other means, legal experts said.

Several officials close to Maliki, a Shiite, said Tuesday that he plans to proceed with the execution as soon as legally possible. "Definitely," said Sadiq Rikabi, a political adviser to the president. "This is in order to open a new page in the history of the Iraqi people."

The nine-judge appeals court also upheld execution sentences for Barzan Ibrahim, Hussein's half brother, and former judge Awad Haman Bander for their roles in the Dujail killings. The judges also changed the sentence of former vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan from life to death.

"In the name of the good Sunnis, the liberal Sunnis, the patriotic Sunnis, we are happy to hear this decision," said Mithal al-Alousi, an influential Sunni politician. "The people are asking us to make political pressure to execute Saddam immediately. We need to close this file. There's no other way for Iraq to move forward."

Saleh al-Armouti, one of Hussein's lawyers, warned against a hanging. "The region now will be more in flames, and the resistance will increase across the Arab world," he said, speaking by telephone from neighboring Jordan. "His absence will lead to more strife and civil war inside Iraq."

Armouti said that Hussein, who is being held at Camp Cropper, a U.S. military prison near Baghdad airport, had expected the appeals court's decision. "His morale is very high," Armouti said. "He doesn't fear death. His will and his faith are very strong."

International human rights groups criticized the Dujail trial as unfair and improperly run, describing it as a victor's court. Human rights activists said they had hoped the appeals court would carry out a careful and comprehensive legal review and correct what they viewed as major flaws in the conduct of the trial.

"We think, given the unfairness in the proceedings, it would be indefensible to execute Saddam Hussein regardless of the crimes alleged in Dujail in 1982," said Richard Dicker, director of the International Justice Program of New York-based Human Rights Watch.

Dicker criticized the appeals court for reaching a decision so soon after Hussein's attorneys filed an appeal, which they did Dec. 3. He said the former president's defense team did not even receive the written judgment from the trial until weeks after the verdict was pronounced, which delayed their preparation for the appeal. "The whole manner in which this has unfolded suggests a highly politicized, nonjudicial approach to what is such an important case," Dicker said.

Bassam Ridha, who serves as a government liaison to the Iraqi High Tribunal, disputed charges that the government had interfered in the judicial process. "It was a very fair process," Ridha said, adding that the trial met international legal standards. "What we are doing is not a human rights violation. Where were these activists when my people were slaughtered?"

In Dujail, residents described the decision as bringing them a step nearer the closure they have awaited for nearly 25 years. "Now I feel that there is actually a God up there in Heaven," said Haiyder Hamed, 43, a farmer.