World responds to Saddam verdict
Sectarian divisions in Iraq have been underlined yet again by today's verdict
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Sunday, 05, Nov 2006 08:10
Iraqi citizens and world politicians have responded to today's guilty verdict for former president Saddam Hussein by welcoming the justice inflicted by the Baghdad tribunal.
The 69-year-old was sentenced to death by hanging earlier today for the massacre of 148 Shia men at the village of Dujail in 1982.
In the immediate aftermath of the verdict celebratory gunfire rang out around the Iraqi capital, with thousands of people taking to the streets in defiance of a 12-hour curfew.
Similar jubilant scenes were witnessed in the Shia district of Sadr City, but in Saddam's hometown of Tikrit and the Sunni areas of Baghdad itself violence broke out as the deposed leader's supporters vowed "we will avenge you Saddam".
Tangible fears still exist in the Middle East and the west that the death sentence for Saddam, a figurehead for many of Iraq's Sunni insurgents, may push the troubled country into full-blown civil war.
But commenting on today's verdict, British foreign secretary Margaret Beckett said that the former president and his co-defendants had been "held to account for their crimes".
"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.
"Today's verdicts and sentences by the Iraqi higher tribunal come at the end of a trial during which evidence has been offered and challenged in the full glare of media scrutiny," she added.
Home secretary John Reid added that today's verdict was all the more gratifying given the absence of outside western influence upon court proceedings.
"This is a sovereign decision of a sovereign nation, the ultimate expression of the sovereignty of Iraq," he told BBC1's Sunday AM programme.
"They are the masters of their own destiny and they have taken a decision today as controllers of that destiny which we should all respect," Mr Reid said.
But he admitted that only "time will tell" if Saddam's sentence will improve the long-term situation in the Middle Eastern country.
Speaking from Washington, White House spokesman Tony Snow said that today was a "good day for the Iraqi people".
"The judiciary is operating independently and we need to give them credit for doing their job and doing it in the way they saw fit and proper," he explained.
Responding to press questions the representative said that the suggestion that the timing of today's verdict with the US midterm elections is more than coincidence is "preposterous".
And finally Iraqi president Jalal Talabani today insisted that the trial was "fair".
"Those people had the full right to say what they intended. I must respect the independence of the Iraqi judiciary. Until the end I must be silent because my comments could affect the situation," he told the Associated Press news agency.