World's Mixed Reaction To Death Sentence

Saddam Hussein's death sentence was celebrated by some as justice deserved or even divine, but denounced by others as a political ploy before critical U.S. midterm congressional elections.

Worldwide, the range of reactions — including a European outcry over capital punishment and doubts about the fairness of the tribunal that ordered Saddam to hang — reflected new geopolitical fault lines drawn after the U.S. decision to invade Iraq in 2003 and depose its dictator.

President Bush called the verdict "a milestone in the Iraqi people's efforts to replace the rule of a tyrant with the rule of law."

"It's a major achievement for Iraq's young democracy and its constitutional government," he said.

"Today, the victims of this regime have received a measure of the justice which many thought would never come," he added.

The European Union welcomed the verdict but said Saddam should not be put to death. At the Vatican, Cardinal Renato Martino, Pope Benedict XVI's top prelate for justice issues, called the sentence a throwback to "eye for an eye" vengeance.

The death sentence automatically goes to a nine-judge appeals panel, which was expected to rule by the middle of January, the chief prosecutor said on Monday.

Iraq's three-man presidential council agreed at least six months ago not to block the death penalty for Saddam, should it be upheld on appeal, the Associated Press reported.

All three members of the presidential Council — President Jalal Talabani and Vice Presidents Tariq al-Hashimi and Adil Abdul-Mahdi — must sign death warrants before executions can be carried out.

If the verdicts and sentences are upheld, the executions must be carried out within 30 days.

"This is not the way to present the new Iraq to the world, which is different from Saddam, who was behind hundreds of thousands of deaths as well as death penalty sentences," said Hands Off Cain, an Italian organization working to rid the world of capital punishment.

"The hanging of Saddam Hussein will turn to hell for the Americans," said Vitaya Wisethrat, a respected Muslim cleric in Thailand, which has its own Islamic insurgency in the country's south.

"The Saddam case is not a Muslim problem but the problem of America and its domestic politics," he said. "Maybe Bush will use this case to tell the voters that Saddam is dead and that the Americans are safe. But actually the American people will be in more danger with the death of Saddam."

Jubilant Shiites marched by the hundreds Monday, celebrating Hussein's sentence as Sunnis held defiant counter-demonstrations, however, the surge in violence expected after the verdict did not materialize.

Intervening militarily was "a grave error," said Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, whose country withdrew its troops from Iraq, contending that conditions there have worsened since the U.S.-led invasion.

Although some voiced doubts that Saddam would actually be hanged, the International Federation for Human Rights denounced the death sentence, warning that it "will generate more violence and deepen the cycle of killing for revenge in Iraq." The Council of Europe called it "futile and wrong" to execute Saddam.

Louise Arbour, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, urged Iraq to ensure a fair appeals process and to refrain from executing Saddam even if the sentence is upheld.

In Pakistan, an opposition religious coalition claimed American forces have caused more deaths in Iraq in the past 3½ years than Saddam did during his 23-year rule, and insisted Bush should stand trial for war crimes.

"Who will punish the Americans and their lackeys who have killed many more people than Saddam Hussein?" asked Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, a senior lawmaker from the Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal coalition, which is critical of Pakistan's military cooperation with the United States.
In the Arab world, some Muslims saw the sentence as divine retribution, but others decried it as a farce.

"Saddam is being judged by traitors, Americans and Iranians, and those who came on the backs of American tanks," said Mahmoud al-Saifi of the Arab Liberation Front.

Iran, which fought an eight-year war against Saddam's Iraq and is a bitter opponent of the United States, praised the death sentence and said it hoped that Saddam — denounced by one lawmaker as "a vampire" — still would be tried for other crimes.

Key U.S. allies — including Britain and Australia — welcomed Sunday's verdict, which had been widely expected.

"Appalling crimes were committed by Saddam Hussein's regime. It is right that those accused of such crimes against the Iraqi people should face Iraqi justice," British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said in a statement.

Asked about Saddam's sentence at his monthly press conference, U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair noted that Britain opposed the death penalty, "whether it's Saddam or anyone else." But he said the trial "gives us a chance
to see again what the past in Iraq was, the brutality, the tyranny,
the hundreds of thousands of people he killed, the wars."

He refused to say explicitly that he did not want to see Saddam put to death, but repeatedly referred to Beckett's comments and said Britian's stance against capital punishment was well-known.

"The whole process of the trial is a sign of democratic hope and I believe the world should see it as such," Australian Prime Minister John Howard told the Nine Network television.

Amnesty International questioned the fairness of the trial, and international legal experts said Saddam should be kept alive long enough to answer for other atrocities.

"This was an opportunity to turn the page in Iraq, after thirty years when unfair trials were the norm — if there were any trials at all this was a chance to set the tone for the future of Iraq," Malcolm Smart Director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Program told CBS's Sunday Morning. "And it's failed miserably because of inadequate planning, inadequate attention to the basic human rights needs of a fair trial."

"The longer we can keep Saddam alive, the longer the tribunal can have to explore some of the other crimes involving hundreds of thousands of Iraqis," said Sonya Sceats, an international law expert at the Chatham House foreign affairs think tank in London.

"The problem really is that this tribunal has not shown itself to be fair and impartial — not only by international standards, but by Iraqi standards," she said.

Chandra Muzaffar, president of the Malaysian-based International Movement for a Just World, also voiced concerns that Saddam's trial "violated many established norms of international jurisprudence."

Even so, "Saddam was undoubtedly a brutal dictator, and even though I wouldn't subscribe to the death penalty, he deserves to be punished severely for the enormity of his crimes," he added.

Konstantin Kosachyov, the Kremlin-allied head of the international affairs committee in Russia's State Duma, or lower house of parliament, said the sentence would deepen divisions in Iraq.

But Kosachyov expressed doubts that Saddam would actually be executed.

The verdict, he said, was mostly symbolic — "retribution that modern Iraq is taking against Saddam's regime."

New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark said she does not want to see Saddam executed because she is against the death penalty, but she believed it was "highly appropriate" that he was found guilty.

India did not address whether it agreed with the verdict, but External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said in a statement he hopes the verdict "will not add to the suffering of the people of Iraq."