Sadam Has Been Executed

[DBOSS]

I have to agree with you Typhoon. I find the death penalty absolutely disgusting.

Scotty

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So is gassing his own people and using them as human shields

Good to see he's dead just a shame it was such as fast death

[Mr X]

The death penalty is wrong!

Yeah I agree, they should have given him a daily routine of torture for the rest of his life... maybe then he would begin to realise his inhumane treatment of others after suffering some himself.

Yep drill a couple of holes in his arms or legs daily with a Makita cordless drill like his goons did.

The Iraqi ambassador to the US said on tv that Saddam was responsible for the death of 2 million Iraqi people.

[Kimberley Scott]

I have to agree with you Typhoon. I find the death penalty absolutely disgusting.

Scotty

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So is gassing his own people and using them as human shields

Good to see he's dead just a shame it was such as fast death

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No doubt, but what gives the government, or law courts which ever way you look at it the right to kill. Would you trust our legal system, let alone a fledging onew like Iraq's?

Scotty

[tab]

The world is a better place...shame a few more people don't suffer the same fate.

[DBOSS]

I have to agree with you Typhoon. I find the death penalty absolutely disgusting.

Scotty

←

So is gassing his own people and using them as human shields

Good to see he's dead just a shame it was such as fast death

←

No doubt, but what gives the government, or law courts which ever way you look at it the right to kill. Would you trust our legal system, let alone a fledging onew like Iraq's?

Scotty

←

Sorry Scotty but im 100% behind having the death penalty,I think Australia would be a better place for it IMHO!

CYA JEFF

[Kimberley Scott]

You guys do know that the last person who was executed in Austarlia under the death penalty, was years later cleared of the crime he commited, IE he was innocent.

That is an absolute travisty of Justice, and should never happen.

Scotty

[phantomchic]

death penalty = premeditated murder

however in this case I think there is no doubt as to the crimes saddam has committed.

shaz

[BA_XR6Turbo_Ute]

Definitely not getting on a plane anytime soon. Some bad sh*t is gonna go down. that's for sure.

[phantomchic]

update

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Saddam Hussein executed

Staff and agencies

Saturday December 30, 2006

Guardian Unlimited

The former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein has been executed by hanging, shortly before dawn this morning at an unspecified location in Baghdad.

US-backed Iraqi television station al-Hurra and Saudi-owned satellite channel al-Arabiya said that the former Iraqi president was executed at 6am local time (3am GMT), following his conviction by an Iraqi court for crimes against humanity.

"Criminal Saddam was hanged to death," state-run Iraqiya television said in an announcement. The station played patriotic music and showed images of national monuments and other landmarks. Mariam al-Rayes, a legal expert and an ally of the Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, told Iraqiya television that the execution "was filmed and God willing it will be shown. There was one camera present, and a doctor was also present there."

US president George Bush said Saddam Hussein's execution marks the "end of a difficult year for the Iraqi people and for our troops", and cautioned that his death will not halt the violence in Iraq.

Yet, Bush said in a statement issued from his ranch in Texas this morning, "it is an important milestone on Iraq's course to becoming a democracy that can govern, sustain and defend itself, and be an ally in the war on terror."

Foreign secretary Margaret Beckett said in a statement: "I welcome the fact that Saddam Hussein has been tried by an Iraqi court for at least some of the appalling crimes he committed against the Iraqi people.

"He has now been held to account. The British government does not support the use of the death penalty, in Iraq or anywhere else. We advocate an end to the death penalty worldwide, regardless of the individual or the crime.

"We have made our position very clear to the Iraqi authorities, but we respect their decision as that of a sovereign nation."

A Downing Street spokeswoman said the statement from Mrs Beckett "spoke for the whole government including the Prime Minister".

Saddam's execution, which became imminent after his appeal was this week rejected, has brought to an end the life of one of the Middle East's most brutal dictators.

Launching the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, campaigns against the Kurds and putting down the southern Shia revolt that followed the 1991 Gulf war - triggered by his invasion of Kuwait - put the casualties attributable to his rule into the hundreds of thousands.

But his conviction was for a relatively lower figure - the deaths of 148 men and boys from the Shia Muslim town of Dujail, where members of an opposition group had made a botched attempt to assassinate him in 1982.

In Iraq opinion was divided sharply along sectarian lines, with Sunni Muslims warning of "bloodbaths in the streets". Even among the Shia, terrorised for decades by Saddam, there was a sense of hopelessness. "They can kill him 10 times but it won't bring safety to the streets because there is no state of law," said one Shia taxi driver who gave his name as Shawkat.

In the Kurdish north, jubilation was tempered by the fear of deeper sectarian tensions and disappointment that Saddam would now not be able to stand trial for other charges including the Anfal attack on the town of Halabja that killed 5,000 people in 1988.

"It would have been much better for the execution to have taken place in Halabja, not in Baghdad," said Barham Khorsheed, a Kurd.

Many critics dismissed the trial as a form of victors' justice and Saddam Hussein's defence had accused the Iraqi government of interfering in the proceedings. The latter complaint was backed by the US-based Human Rights Watch.

Ongoing was a trial for the deaths of thousands in the Anfal campaign against the Kurds, who were also the victims of one of Saddam's most notorious abuses - the gassing of 5,000 people in Halabja. If Saddam had not been executed, he could have faced as many as 12 trials for crimes against humanity.

[Adam]

You guys do know that the last person who was executed in Australia under the death penalty, was years later cleared of the crime he committed, IE he was innocent.

That is an absolute travesty of Justice, and should never happen.

Scotty

The last person to be executed in Australia was in Victoria.

Ronald Joseph Ryan was hanged on Friday 3 Feb, 1967 at 8.00am in Pentridge Prison. He was convicted of shooting a prison guard during an escape from Pentridge.

Douglas Pascoe, a former prison guard confessed to firing at Ronald Ryan during the escape believing he may have accidentally killed the prison guard. I'm not aware that this was ever proven resulting in Ryan being cleared.