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Supposedly saddam confesses { September 7 2005 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/5142872e-1f8e-11da-853a-00000e2511c8.htmlhttp://news.ft.com/cms/s/5142872e-1f8e-11da-853a-00000e2511c8.html
Iraqi president calls for Saddam’s execution
By FT reporters
Published: September 7 2005 11:59 | Last updated: September 7 2005 11:59
Saddam Hussein has confessed to ordering executions and should be hanged “20 times”, Jalal Talabani, Iraq’s president, has said.
In an interview on Iraqi television on Tuesday night, Mr Talabani said that investigator who had questioned the former Iraqi president had extracted “important signed confessions” from Mr Hussein.
The former leader had confessed to ordering the ‘Anfal’ - a campaign against Kurdish villages between 1986 and 1989 in which over 100,000 people were reported to have been killed - Mr Talabani told Iraqia state television.
He added: “Saddam deserves a death sentence 20 times a day because he tried to assassinate me 20 times,” said Mr Talabani, recalling his days as a Kurdish rebel leader.
However, Abdel Haq Alani, a legal consultant to Mr Hussein’s family told Associated Press news agency Mr Hussein had not mentioned any confession when he met his Iraqi lawyer on Monday. “Let’s not have a trial on TV. Let the court of law, not the media, make its ruling on this,’’ Mr Alani said.
The Iraqi government, which is now dominated by former opponents to Saddam Hussein from the country’s Shia majority, confirmed on Sunday that the deposed leader will go on trial on October 19, four days after a referendum is due to be held on the new constitution.
His co-defendants will include Barzan Ibrahim, his half-brother and then-chief of intelligence, Taha Yassin Ramadan, former vice-president, Awad Badar Al-Bandar, a former judge, and four former members of the local Ba'ath party, along with several aides.
The initial trial will focus on charges relating to the killing of 143 Shia villagers after a failed assassination bid at Dujail in 1982. If convicted, Mr Hussein and his co-defendants could be executed for the Dujail killings, avoiding the need for further trials. Prosecutors have said Mr Hussein’s direct responsibility for the deaths at Dujail may be easier to prove than in larger cases involving the mass killing of Shias and Kurds.
Mr Talabani is officially opposed to the death penalty on the grounds that, as leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, he once signed up to an international ban on capital punishment. But has made clear that he would not block a court decision to impose the penalty.
Last week Iraq hanged the first three criminals to be sentenced to death since Mr Hussein’s regime was overthrown by US forces. Mr Talabani handed responsibility for signing the warrant to his vice president, Adel Abdel Mehdi.
Khalil al-Dulaimi, Mr Hussein’s lawyer, complained after meeting his client on Monday that the trial date had not been agreed through the Special Tribunal set up to try the former leader and his closest associates.
“Setting a date for the trial within days, weeks or months is unacceptable because the court alleges that it has 36 tonnes of documents and the defence team cannot come to the trial without studying what the court has of evidence,” Mr Dulaimi told Reuters on Monday.
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