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LONDON (AP) Dec 30, 2006 — Saddam Hussein’s execution found the United States and Iran sharing rare common ground, with both countries saying the hanging of the former dictator was in the best interest of Iraq, its people and the region.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he hoped Saddam’s hanging would bring stability to Iraq, though he told Iraqi President Jalal Talabani by telephone the execution prevented the exposure of atrocities the former dictator committed during his rule, state-run television reported.
In Washington, President Bush said Saddam received “the kind of justice he denied the victims of his brutal regime.”
Newspapers in the Arab world and Israel reflect a combination of cynicism, anger and fear over the execution of Saddam Hussein.
Arab commentators are angry about the timing of the execution on one of the holiest days of the Muslim calendar. Some argue Washington rather than Baghdad dictated the timing and ask why Americans have not been brought to justice for all the Iraqis killed since the 2003 invasion.
Israel Haaretz: Saddam was the enemy of Iran and served as a brake against its expansionist aspirations. With his departure he leaves the Middle East exposed to the expansion of Iranian nationalism and Shia Islam.
While there was little official reaction from the Arab world, many Muslims criticized the timing of the execution just hours before the start of the most important holiday of the Islamic calendar, Eid al-Adha.
Egypt’s Foreign Ministry said Iraqi authorities hung Saddam “without considering the Muslims’ feelings or respecting the sanctity of this day that represents an occasion for forgiveness and absolution,” according to the official news agency, MENA.
In Jordan, a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood party, Jamil Abu-Bakr, said executing Saddam at the start of the holiday was an attempt “to harm the Muslim nation.”
Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the execution is “another poignant reminder of the violence that continues to grip Iraq. We hope that this event would not further exacerbate the security situation.”
Libya, meanwhile, announced a three-day period of national mourning, lowered its flags to half mast and canceled its Eid celebrations. Before the execution, Gaddafi said the International Court of Justice and the General Assembly of the United Nations must give their point of view on the case. “Where is the world’s conscience?”
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) Dec. 31 — New video, first broadcast by Al-Jazeera satellite television early Sunday, had sound of someone in the group praising the founder of the Shiite Dawa Party, who was executed in 1980 along with his sister by Saddam.
Saddam appeared to smile at those taunting him from below the gallows. He said they were not showing manhood.
(CNNi showed the new video with audio where one of his executioners can clearly be heard repeating: “Moqtada, Moqtada, Moqtada” to taunt the former dictator in his last moments before death. Unbelievable! – Oui)
Then Saddam began reciting the “Shahada,” a Muslim prayer that says there is no god but God and Muhammad is his messenger, according to an unabridged copy of the same tape, apparently shot with a camera phone and posted on a Web site.
(AL-Jazeera) — In India, External Affairs Minister, Pranab Mukherjee issued a statement condemning the execution of the former Iraqi leader, saying: “We had already expressed the hope that the execution would not be carried out. We are disappointed that it has been. We hope that this unfortunate event will not affect the process of reconciliation, restoration of peace and normalcy in Iraq.”
“No one has the right to, not before Bakrid, not after it. He was elected democratically, and no country has the right to first attack a country then remove its President. When millions have gathered in Saudi Arabia, and when Bakrid is being celebrated in Lucknow and all over, at a time like this…it is a sign of how they do not care about the feelings of the Muslim community,” said Maulana Khalid Rasheed, a member of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB).
Muslims organised massive demonstrations in several parts of India, home to 130 million Muslims, denouncing the brutal execution of the former Iraqi leader.
Some placards held by demonstrators read: “Bush is the real enemy of humanity” and “We will not forget Saddam, a freedom fighter”.
Elsewhere in the world, Saddam’s execution was greeted with support in some corners but also with a degree of concern about the use of capital punishment, which is viewed with disdain in Europe.
In Italy, former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who had staunchly backed the U.S.-led war in Iraq and sent Italian troops to fight, called the hanging “a step backward in Iraq’s difficult road toward full democracy.”
“The civilization in the name of which my country decided to send Italian soldiers into Iraq envisioned overcoming the death penalty, even for a bloody dictator like Saddam,” he said.
The Vatican denounced the execution as “tragic,” and Dutch Deputy Prime Minister Gerrit Zalm called it “barbaric.”
Other countries feared the hanging would only spark more violence in Iraq.
The death sentence revived old differences between the U.S. and Europe which opposes execution
Britain has abolished the death penalty for all crimes. It ratified Protocol 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights which abolishes the death penalty in most circumstances, the Second Optional Protocol to the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which also bans the use of capital punishment, as well as Protocol 13 of the ECHR, that bans the death penalty in all circumstances, including time of war.
The reintroduction of the death penalty by Iraq’s U.S.-appointed interim government in August 2004 after it was banned following Saddam’s overthrow, has been condemned by the UN, European states and human-rights groups.
It has also resulted in friction between the U.S and its main war ally, Britain. Sir Jeremy Greenstock, former top British representative in Iraq, said the UK would not participate in a tribunal or legal process that could lead to execution.
China leads death list as number of executions around the world soars
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."