When Mohammed al-Ureybi, the presiding judge at the trial of Saddam Hussein, started reading out that the court sentenced Saddam to death for killing 148 inhabitants of the Shiite village of Dujail in 1982, Saddam interrupted him. Just as the learned judge got to the part about the punishment for ‘crimes against humanity’, the deposed tyrant shouted, ‘Down with the traitors! Down with the invaders! To hell with your articles and your clauses!’
It is not how a man accused of crimes against humanity is supposed to react to a guilty verdict. According to the ideals of international law, he is supposed to accept his own guilt and bend his head in shame. Saddam didn’t even recognise the legitimacy of the court. He was supported by the UN’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which in September concluded that Saddam was not getting a fair trial and that his deprivation of liberty was ‘arbitrary’.
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