Confusion over Saddam fate

Dubai, Dec 29 (UNI) Confusion prevailed tonight over the fate of deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein with conflicting reports coming in on whether he would be executed within the next few hours.

Reports said the former Iraqi dictator had been handed over to Iraqi authorities for execution and his lawyers had been asked to collect his personal belongings.

An Iraqi television channel quoted a judge saying that he would be executed tomorrow.

Reports from Baghdad, quoting officials, however, denied that Saddam Hussein would be hanged tomorrow but Saddam's lawyers said he was being readied for execution and had been handed over to the Iraqi authorities.

Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death on November 5 for ordering massacre of 148 people in 1982 for who, he thought, had engineered an assassination attempt on him.

The death sentence was confirmed by an Iraqi Apellate Court on December 26.

After the Apellate Court judegemnt, Saddam had to apply to Iraqi President Jalal Talabani for clemency, which he is unlikely to as he does not recognise the new Iraqi regime. The execution is to be carried out within 30 days.

India had expressed the hope that saddam's life would be spared and that no steps were taken which would delay peace in the embattled country.

The External Afairs Ministry, in a statement after the Apellate Court Judgement, expressed the hope that the sentence would not be carried out and no steps taken which might obstruct the reconciliation process and delay the restoration of peace in Iraq. ''We have seen reports that the Appeals Court in Baghdad has confirmed the death sentence on former President Saddam Hussein of Iraq. It is our hope that the sentence will not be carried out and that the former President's life would be spared. We would also hope that no steps are taken which might obstruct the process of reconciliation and delay the restoration of peace in Iraq,'' the statement issued by the External Affairs Ministry said.

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