Hussein’s Execution Spurs Bombings

Saddam Hussein (69), former Iraqi president, was hanged on December 30 (local time). The former dictator who ruled Iraq for more than 20 years was executed three years after he was captured alive from a hiding hole in his hometown of Tikrit. The execution was carried out just four days after Iraq’s highest appeal court upheld the death sentence for the deposed Iraqi leader. Iraq’s criminal law doesn’t allow a death sentence for someone over 70 years old. Hussein was only four months away from his seventieth birthday. The Iraqi deputy foreign minister confirmed the execution. The execution took place at the 5th Division intelligence office in Qadhimiya, Northern Baghdad.

A few hours after the execution, the Iraqi state-run television network aired a videotape of the former dictator’s last moments before he was hanged to death and his body. In the videotape, Hussein is taken to the gallows and the noose is placed over his head.

The former Iraqi leader was indicted on charges of illegal arrest, torture, murder of 148 Shiites in Dujail in 1982 as part of a crackdown on the town after an assassination attempt on Hussein’s life. He was sentenced to death at the first trial last November.

U.S. President George W. Bush issued a statement saying, “It’s an important milestone on Iraq’s course to becoming a democracy.”

The execution was followed by a series of bomb attacks. At least 75 people lost their lives to 9 car bomb attacks and suicide attacks in Baghdad on December 30 alone. Meanwhile South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade urged all diplomatic missions of South Korea throughout the world to take safety measures against possible terrorist attacks.

lightee@donga.com