“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 has was unmatched in Iraq’s history,” Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq’s Shiite prime minister, said.
Sadaam Hussein was sentenced to death after his conviction, along with his half-brother and another senior ex-official for 148 murders on one day in a town in Iraq.
Picture from Halabja, 1988
This verdict is a victory for freedom against tyranny everywhere, not just Iraq. When Tyrants know they will be brought to justice or even could be brought to justice, they behave differently. You can bet that Chavez, Achmadinejad, and Kim Jung Il are paying attention.
 Over time all tyrants die, some just take longer than others.
From the AP Story:
In the streets of Dujail, a Tigris River city of 84,000, people celebrated and burned pictures of their former tormentor as the verdict was read.
Saddam’s chief lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi condemned the trial as a “farce,” claiming the verdict was planned. He said defense attorneys would appeal within 30 days.
The death sentences automatically go to a nine-judge appeals panel, which has unlimited time to review the case. If the verdicts and sentences are upheld, the executions must be carried out within 30 days.
A court official told The Associated Press that the appeals process was likely to take three to four weeks once the formal paperwork was submitted.
During Sunday’s hearing, Saddam initially refused the chief judge’s order to rise; two bailiffs pulled the ousted ruler to his feet and he remained standing through the sentencing, sometimes wagging his finger at the judge.
Before the session began, one of Saddam’s lawyers, former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, was ejected from the courtroom after handing the judge a memorandum in which he called the trial a travesty.Â
Good going Ramsey, they really pay attention to Marxist lawyers well in Iraq don’t they?
Judge reportedly said to Ramsay Clark “You are ridiculing the Iraqi people. You have come here from America. Get out.†(Fox News Live)
From the Wikipedia entry on Ramsey Clark:
Following his term he worked as a law professor and was active in the anti–Vietnam War movement. He visited North Vietnam in 1972. In 1974 he was the Democratic Party’s candidate for the United States Senate from New York, losing to Jacob Javits.
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More recently, Clark has become controversial for his political views and publications.
Clark is affiliated with VoteToImpeach, an organization advocating the impeachment of President George W. Bush. He has been an opponent of both Gulf War conflicts. “Impeachment is the most important issue facing Constitutional government in the United States. Impeachment will determine whether the American people will hold the Bush administration accountable for its High Crimes and Misdemeanors”. Clark is the founder of the International Action Center. It holds significant overlapping membership with the Workers’ World Party. Clark and the IAC helped found the protest organization A.N.S.W.E.R. (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism).
ANSWER is the wonderful socialist/communist organization that brought us all those Illegal Immigration Marches last Spring. It’s also quite likely that Hugo Chavez was involved in the planning.