Reply #27: Saddam's deputy goes to gallows

[oblivious]

Source: The Age

SADDAM Hussein's vice-president was hanged yesterday despite protests by human rights groups that the evidence was weak and the sentence unfair.

......

Ramadan was convicted in November along with six others, including Saddam, for his role in the 1982 massacre of 148 Shiites in a small town north of Baghdad after an assassination attempt on the Iraqi president. ...Ramadan was a relatively minor figure in the trial. The accusations against him largely centred on his order that orchards and fields in the Dujayl area be bulldozed, and evidence was presented about his participation in meetings with other leaders who were more culpable in the massacres.

...Human rights groups and some government organisations, including an arm of the United Nations, have said the con- viction was the result of guilt by association and that the evidence supported conviction on lesser crimes, such as unlawful imprisonment and inhumane acts. They opposed the execution, saying the Iraqi judiciary lacked independence from political influence and that due-process rights normally afforded to defendants elsewhere were not practised.

"The trial was riddled with flaws and didn't meet international standards," said Sara Dareshori, senior counsel with Human Rights Watch in New York.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/saddams-deputy-goes-to-gallows/2007/03/20/1174153063173.html

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Three things I remember about Taha Yassin Ramadan:

1. He suggested that instead of war, Bush, Saddam and their top aids should fight a duel.

2. He called the Saudi foreign minister a loser, minion and lackey.

3. In his press conferences during Shock and Awe, he always looked and sounded like he had just returned from the battlefront, which I guess he had. You could take him a lot more seriously than the American spokespeople and the opposing VP.


1. THREATS AND RESPONSES; An Iraqi Offer: Duels, Not War
October 4, 2002
An Iraqi vice president offered an unusual suggestion today for solving the American-Iraqi standoff: President Saddam Hussein and President Bush and their top aides should fight a duel to settle their differences and spare their people the ravages of war.

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan would be the referee for the duel, which should be held in neutral territory, the vice president, Taha Yasin Ramadan, said in an interview.

Mr. Ramadan gave no sign that he was joking.

Iraq has two vice presidents. Mr. Ramadan did not say whether he or the other one, Taha Mohieddin Maruf, would take on Dick Cheney.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=980DE3DF163BF937A35753C1A9649C8B63&n=Top%2fReference%2fTimes%20Topics%2fPeople%2fR%2fRamadan%2c%20Taha%20Yassin


2.Obituary: Taha Yassin Ramadan
He lambasted the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, when the Saudis proposed that Saddam Hussein step down in early 2003 to avoid a US invasion.

"You loser. You are a minion and a lackey," he said, telling the Saudi prince to "go to hell".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2333287.stm




3. Iraqi vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan, right, leaves the press office at the ministry of information after addressing a news conference, in Baghdad, Sunday, March 23, 2003. —AP/PTI

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2003/20030324/world.htm