Iraq's Kurds say Saddam's hanging robs them of justice

By Staff
|
Google Oneindia News

SULAIMANIYA, Iraq, Jan 7 (Reuters) Sarwa Omar, a 26-year-old Iraqi Kurdish housekeeper whose father died in Kurdistan's killing fields in the 1980s, cried tears of anger when Saddam Hussein was hanged last week.

''I didn't cry because I liked him. I cried because he didn't get hanged for the Anfal case,'' said Omar, referring to Saddam's 1988 military campaign against ethnic Kurds in which prosecutors say 180,000 people were killed, many of them gassed.

''Kurdish officials should not have allowed this to happen.'' Some Kurds said Saddam's execution on December 30 for crimes against humanity in the killing of 148 Shi'ites robbed them of the historic opportunity of trying the deposed leader for the graver crime of genocide when the Anfal case resumes in a Baghdad courtroom tomorrow.

Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki rushed the execution of his former enemy despite calls from US officials for a delay and reservations from Maliki's Kurdish coalition partners, who had expected the appeal process to run for months to allow more time to have their grievances heard.

''Why didn't they wait until the Anfal case was finished to execute him?'' said Satar Karim, 63, who had three brothers killed in Anfal.

''The government killed him because they are underestimating what happened in Anfal. Who is going to compensate us now?'' Adala Omar, a civil servant in the Kurdish city of Arbil, said majority Shi'ites, in power since a US invasion ended Saddam's Sunni-dominated rule, steamrolled the case to win a political victory to the detriment of the judicial process.

Kurds had expected to try Saddam on other charges, including a chemical gas attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja that killed 5,000 people in 1988.

''I think Saddam's execution in the Dujail case is a political decision,'' Omar said. ''The Shi'ites are the strongest part in the government and they imposed their will in choosing the timing.'' Saddam's fellow Sunni Arabs have been angered by the hanging after a clandestine video showed Shi'ite officials taunting him with sectarian slogans on the gallows.

''CHEMICAL ALI'' But other Kurds, while lamenting that Saddam will no longer sit in the dock, said they will feel vindicated if they win guilty sentences for the former president's six co-defendants, including Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as ''Chemical Ali'' and considered the main enforcer of Anfal.

Anfal, or Spoils of War, was named after a chapter in the Koran.

Kurds accuse Majid of playing a key role in the killing of tens of thousands with chemical gas attacks, summary executions, torture and destruction of hundreds of villages. He faces genocide charges, as did Saddam.

''Saddam is dead but the hero of the Anfal operation is still alive,'' said Abdul Ghani Yahya, a man in his 60s. ''The Anfal case is still going on and I will follow it.'' Some fear the absence of Saddam, whose frequent tirades against the US-backed court enthralled television audiences, will diminish interest in the Anfal proceedings.

Prosecutors in Anfal have gathered thousands of documents and US-backed forensic experts have spent months unearthing mass graves they have said they will present as evidence.

''After the execution of Saddam the court will lose its importance,'' said Abdul Rahman Zebari, a lawyer for civil plaintiffs in the case. ''The media won't care anymore.'' Shamse Khader, 50, whose husband and one son disappeared after being rounded up by Saddam's soldiers in 1988, said that with Saddam's death she had buried all her hopes.

''I waited all these years to hear something about them. Now, I have lost all hope.'' REUTERS SY RN1850

For Daily Alerts
Get Instant News Updates
Enable
x
Notification Settings X
Time Settings
Done
Clear Notification X
Do you want to clear all the notifications from your inbox?
Settings X
X