Iraq probing Saddam execution
BAGHDAD, Iraq – As thousands of Saddam Hussein’s supporters protested in Sunni Arab enclaves across Iraq, the Shiite-led government said it had launched an investigation into the chaotic scene at his execution, captured on video, which has deepened the nation’s sectarian rift and sparked condemnation around the world.
Iraqi officials said a committee from the Interior Ministry would likely question everyone, including senior Iraqi officials, who was present at the hanging, where witnesses mocked and jeered the ousted president as he stood at the gallows. Hours later, grainy video of the event, taken with a cell phone camera, was broadcast around the world, bringing more pressure on Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to take action.
The video triggered outrage, in Iraq and abroad, at Saddam’s undignified and disorderly end. Iraq’s Sunnis declared the execution an act of Shiite revenge.
The Vatican, in its official newspaper, called the images from the hanging “a spectacle” that violated human rights and could harm Iraq’s process of reconciliation.
The Italian government, which like all members of the European Union opposes the death penalty, said after the appearance of the video that it would push at the United Nations for a worldwide moratorium on capital punishment.
The video was the latest example of how amateurs using modern technology are exposing abuses and holding the powerful to account. The investigation, officials said, would focus not only on who hurled the taunts, but also on how the video was leaked, damaging the government’s credibility. Al-Maliki’s political adviser, Sadiq al-Rikabi, said the prime minister was “disappointed about that film.”
“He took the subject very seriously,” al-Rikabi said. “The prime minister tried his best to implement the execution very respectfully.”
In the video, one person yells “Go to hell” at Saddam while another voice is heard chanting “Muqtada, Muqtada, Muqtada,” referring to Muqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shiite cleric whose father and two brothers were assassinated by Saddam’s regime. The taunts provoked Saddam to hurl insults.
Later, images of Saddam’s swinging body were plastered on dozens of Web sites. On the video-sharing site Youtube.com, a search using the terms “Saddam Hussein hanging” generated 1,559 results as of Tuesday night.
The probe could implicate senior Iraqi officials. Munqith al-Faroun, the deputy prosecutor in Saddam’s trial, said in a telephone interview Tuesday that he saw two official observers using their cell phones to record Saddam’s last moments. The two men, he said, were “recording through their mobiles openly.” He said he did not recognize them but could do so if he saw them again.
Al-Maliki aides said they did not think any officials were behind the video.
“I am confident that they were not the guards, for I checked the guards. I kept them under my eye,” al-Faroun said. “They were not people who came off the street.” Iraqi officials had been flown in by two U.S. helicopters from the Green Zone an hour before the execution.
Al-Faroun, who could be heard in the video appealing for calm, said he had considered walking out during the disorderly moments, which would have halted the execution because his presence was required by law. But soon the room quieted.
“If there were other violations, I would have stepped out,” he said. “I did not make a threat. But it was in my mind. If I noticed another violation, I would have stopped the execution and taken other measures,” he added, without being specific.
Al-Faroun said he did not know how the cell phones were taken into the execution room at the former military intelligence headquarters. Everyone at the hanging, Faroun said, was searched and had their phones taken. “Even my cell phone, which had no camera, was taken,” he said.