Iraqi Justics

Chicago Tribune reports Three men convicted of murder, rape and kidnapping sat before the judge, awaiting their fates. But first they had to face their victims' seething families.

"They broke his arms. They broke his legs. They took out his eyeballs," one woman said at the hearing recently in Kut, describing what the men did to her son. "Death penalty. I want the death penalty."

A man in the back of the crowded courtroom held a sign that read "We do not accept any sentence less than death."

Moments later, the audience got its wish. The three alleged members of the insurgent group Ansar al-Sunna Army were condemned to be hanged "in the next 10 days," according to the sentence imposed by the special criminal court. In a show of force the Iraqi government hopes will help quell the insurgency, Iraq will soon carry out its first judicial executions since the fall of Saddam Hussein. And despite objections raised by some other countries and international human-rights groups, the Iraqi public, by most accounts, is welcoming their return. "Before, the criminals thought that they would go to jail and a few months later they would be released," said Abu Muhammad, owner of Kuwait Money Exchange Co.

In Hussein's Iraq, execution was commonly used to suppress political dissent, and the death penalty was a punishment for 114 crimes. After the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the U.S. administrator for Iraq, Paul Bremer, suspended capital punishment, declaring that "the former regime used certain provisions of the penal code as a means of oppression, in violation of internationally acknowledged human rights." Iraq's interim government revived the death penalty in August for a smaller set of violent crimes, as well as drug trafficking. The decision is believed to have been motivated by the desire to execute Hussein. The Shiite bloc leading Iraq's new government has said that if Hussein is convicted, it will oppose any move to spare his life. Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari would "fully support" executing Hussein, according to his spokesman, Laith Kubba. However, human-rights organizations have raised concerns about the Shiite Muslim-led government's use of capital punishment to deter insurgent attacks. In addition, Iraqi security forces, and particularly Interior Ministry commandos, have been accused in recent weeks of summarily executing Sunni religious leaders.

Kevin Aylward blogged Also the return of the death penalty in Iraq is very popular among the Iraqi public who've become the target of least resistance for insurgents.

NYT blogged Iraq to Move Up Trial of Hussein and Start It in Summer - Iraq's month-old transitional government, keen to establish its authority after weeks of intensifying insurgent violence, announced Tuesday that planned to move up the trial of Saddam Hussein, bringing him to court this summer. Jalal Talabani, the Kurdish politician who is the country's transitional president, said in a CNN interview from his headquarters in northern Iraq on Tuesday that he expected Mr. Hussein to be put on trial "within two months," a move that would break with earlier plans to defer his trial until later this year or next. Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, at a news conference in Baghdad, gave a strong endorsement of the role played by "multinational forces," the formal name for the 160,000 foreign troops serving here under American command, including about 140,000 Americans and 20,000 in contingents from some 30 other nations.

Phillip Carter blogged Just when you thought you'd seen the trial of the century... I don't know much of a media circus we'll get out of the Hussein trial. I imagine that many world media organizations will send people to Baghdad. But it's hard to say ahead of time whether this trial will have that certain star quality that makes for good TV. If the Hussein trial looks like the Milosevic trial -- the legal version of "A Very Long Engagement" -- then I'll bet the networks pull the plug after the first few episodes. On the other hand, if the Iraqis allow TV in the courtroom, and Mr. Hussein's lawyers make a good show of it, then this could become the world's next big legal drama. I guess we'll see soon enough.

Jan Haugland blogged If the intention is to take the air out of the terrorists, I doubt it will have the intended effect. But reminding the people about the vast crimes of their former ruler can't be a bad thing.

It should certainly be more interesting than the Jackson trial