Saddam Hussein called on all Iraqis to unite and "forgive" each other two days after he was sentenced to death, writes Doaa El-Bey The former Iraqi president called on Iraqis to forgive, reconcile and shake hands after he appeared in court on Tuesday to face genocide charges in the Anfal case. In the 21st session of the trial, which opened two days after the death sentence, Saddam sat calm and composed in his docks as he listened to witnesses testifying against him. Prosecutors accused Saddam and six other defendants including his cousin, Ali Hassan Al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali", of killing some 180,000 Kurdish civilians. Saddam and his co- defendents insisted it was a legitimate counter-insurgency operation against separatists at a time of war with Iran. If found guilty, Saddam could face another death sentence in the Anfal trial unless the first death sentence is carried out beforehand. Saddam's defence team, who did not attend the session, continued their month- long boycott in protest against the government's decision to sack the previous judge. Court-appointed lawyers sat in instead. Although they believe they would gain little in doing so, Saddam Hussein's defence team decided to appeal against what they described as a political sentence pronounced to please the Americans and the Iraqi government. Under Iraqi law, Saddam and the other three co-defendants sentenced to death have the right to appeal against their sentence. However, the appeal procedures are expected to take two to three months. The appeal should be submitted to the trial chamber which can hold it for a maximum of 10 days. Then the trial chamber may forward it to the appeal chamber that has to forward it immediately to the prosecutor. The latter has 20 day to present its views about the file before returning it to the appeal chamber. They then have no time limit to deliberate on the case. If it agrees with the trial chamber, its decision is final and has to be carried out within 30 days. The appeal chamber's decision is expected by January or February. Finally, it needs to go to the three- member presidency council for approval. Although President Jalal Talabani personally opposes the death sentences, he had allowed his deputies to stamp execution orders in his absence on previous capital cases. The sentence sparked different reactions in Iraq. The Iraqi government welcomed the sentence with Nuri Al-Maliki, the Shia prime minister, regarding the verdict as history's judgement on a whole era. "The verdict placed on the heads of the former regime does not represent a verdict for any one person. It is a verdict on a whole dark era that was unmatched in Iraq's history," Al-Maliki said after the sentence. The United Nations special investigator on the independence of judges and lawyers, Leandro Despouy, urged the Iraqi government not to carry out Saddam's death sentence. He said that hanging Saddam would represent a serious setback to the country. Meanwhile, Saddam's disbanded Baath Party threatened to attack the heavily- protected "Green Zone" in Baghdad if the death sentence for Dujail is carried out. It vowed, in a statement posted on the Internet on Tuesday, to use all possible means to destroy embassies, as well as the headquarters of "intelligence and treacherous organisations" in the heavily-protected Green Zone nerve centre of US-backed power in Baghdad. However, an Iraqi academic who talked on condition of anonymity refused to make any link between Saddam's hanging and the end of violence in Iraq. She expected that the current officials should bring a better era than that of Saddam's. "Innocent people die everyday. Who is going to punish those who kill them? Who is going to punish those who kill Iraqi academics? Under the previous regime, we, at least, knew who committed these crimes, now we do not know who is killing innocent people," she said. In a separate development that could ease tension after the death sentence, a top official in Baghdad said Iraqi leaders had agreed to draft a law to allow former Baath members back into government jobs. The proposed reform could reverse the sacking of more than a million former Baathist activists, mainly members of Iraq's Sunni Arab minority, and ease tension between Sunnis and Shias.
