Saddam's fate fuels US death-penalty critics

Washington, Dec 31: Ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein'sdeath by hanging has fueled opponents of the death penalty in theUnited States, which is at odds with many of its closest allies whoview the practice as barbaric.

US airwaves were blanketed with images of black-masked hangmenleading Saddam to the noose yesterday in what US President George Bushcalled ''an important milestone on Iraq's course to becoming ademocracy.'' Richard Dicker, director of an international justiceprogram of New York-based Human Rights Watch, said: ''The execution ofSaddam, a human-rights monster, turned his unspeakable record upsidedown.'' Saddam, 69, was convicted in November by a US-sponsored Iraqicourt of crimes against humanity and was hanged at dawn in Baghdad.Deposed by a 2003 US-led invasion, Saddam refused a hood designed toshield his gaze as he faced the gallows.

Images of the execution ''will not strengthen the argument ofdeath penalty proponents in the United States or anywhere else,''Dicker said.

David Elliot of the National Coalition to Abolish the DeathPenalty, a Washington-based group working to end capital punishment,called the pictures ''ghoulish.'' ''We're more determined than ever toabolish the death penalty,'' he added in a telephone interview. ''It'snot a question of whether it will happen, it's a question of when.''The American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group, urged the USgovernment to join global moves to end the death penalty.

Executing Saddam fails to remedy a grave human-rights situation inIraq and ''serves only to devalue further the right to life,'' saidTonya McClary of the group's anti-death penalty program.

Most Americans still favour the death penalty, but many US statesare reconsidering it. US executions are at a 10-year low, and theannual number of death sentences has dropped almost 60 per cent since1999, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

An ABC News/Washington Post poll in June found 65 percent of American adults endorsed executing convicted murderers.

International human-rights inquiries and other studies regularlyfault the US death-penalty system for problems including wrongfulconvictions, inadequate legal representation for defendants and racialand economic disparities in its application.

''Many allies consider such practices to be unfit for a greatdemocracy seeking to assert leadership on human rights and otherinternational policy matters,'' the American Civil Liberties Union saidin a paper that concluded the death penalty weakened US interestsworldwide.

Former Belgian foreign minister Louis Michel reacted to Saddam'sexecution by saying ''you don't fight barbarism with acts that I deembarbaric.'' Legal challenges in the United States often turn on whetherexecutions violate a constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Saddam's execution will boost opposition to capital punishmentworldwide, including the United States and the Middle East, ''becauseit will be viewed as following a flawed, rushed trial that resulted ina penalty that is cruel and inhumane,'' said Zahir Janmohamed ofAmnesty International, winner of the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize.

More than half the world's countries -- 129 -- have abolished the death penalty in law or in practice, according to Amnesty.

China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United States accounted for 94percent of the executions recorded by Amnesty International in 2005.

Of the known total, China had the lion's share with at least 1,770 while 60 were executed in the United States, Amnesty said.

Seventy-two percent of the 50 US states had no executions in 2006, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Most executions in ten states are on hold as aspects of theircapital-punishment laws are examined. Two states -- Illinois and NewJersey -- have a formal moratorium on all executions while theirlegislatures weigh the issues.

In the United States, two states -- New Hampshire and Washington-- authorize executions by hanging, with lethal injection as analternative.

Reuters

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