Saddam must die for all the terrible crimes he committed

TWO Iraqi exiles living in Edinburgh - including a former colonel in Saddam Hussein's army - today said that they welcomed the death sentence handed out to the dictator.

Mohammed Nafee said he and his family cheered with delight when the "Butcher of Baghdad" was sentenced to hang.

And Dr Kadhim Khweir, a consultant engineer, said he too greeted the result with joy - even though he doesn't agree with capital punishment.

The former Iraqi president was sentenced to "suffer the death penalty by hanging" by Judge Raouf Abdul Rahman on Sunday, for the 1982 massacre of 148 men from Dujail, just one of the atrocities committed under Saddam's rule. The trial took more than a year, cost millions of dollars and saw three defence lawyers assassinated and two judges replaced, while Saddam refused to recognise its legitimacy.

But 51-year-old Mr Nafee, who served in Saddam's army for 20 years before fleeing the country in 1996, said that he had seen "more than enough" to convince him the death penalty was deserved.

"We were watching the television for hours, waiting for the result to be read out," he said.

"When it was announced I immediately got on the phone to friends in Iraq to congratulate them. I have no doubt that he deserves the death penalty, and the people of Iraq would not have accepted any other verdict."

He added: "Everyone there knows what he was, what he did and the number of people he killed during his 33 years in charge, so they all expected this decision. Even his daughter said it was expected.

"Saddam was nervous about it, and what we saw from him in court is typical, playing up to the cameras. The people know he is not brave or defiant. He is a coward. The image of him cowering in his rat hole in Tikrit when he was captured showed us that.

"If he was not a coward he would have killed himself there, but he did not."

Mr Nafee said that under Saddam's rule, conspirators who plotted against him were torn to shreds by dogs. He also said he saw the cruelty the former dictator dished out against the Kurds of northern Iraq first-hand.

"When I heard the stories of the people on the stand, I understood what they were saying because I was in the army at the time," he said. "I was in the barracks where they brought more than a thousand Kurds, who were just put in holes in the ground and then tortured. This happened to thousands of people, and I think many of them were later executed.

"When I realised Saddam was using the army against his own people I knew I had to leave. I heard from other men that they had burned a village in Basra and killed civilians there because they opposed Saddam, and I thought if he asked me to do this I would not be able to and I would be killed. So I escaped."

Now a musician living with his family in Leith, Mr Nafee said he hoped to still return to Iraq. But on a recent visit, one of his cousins was kidnapped by terrorists and held for weeks before being freed by American soldiers.

"I would love to go back, but at the moment it just isn't possible," he said. "Iraq will have problems as long as there is a religious government. A rule based on Islamic law will only divide the people. The situation now has less to do with Saddam and more to do with religious divisions."

Consultant engineer Dr Khweir, 52, from South Gyle, came to Edinburgh in 1986, and the first Gulf war forced him to stay. Originally from Najaf, he is now married with four children. He said he was sure that the verdict was the correct one.

"I would watch repeats of it [the trial] at night after I got in from work," he said. "Sometimes, when the witnesses were giving their evidence and would break down in tears, I would also break down.

"Like many Iraqis, I lost a lot of friends under Saddam's rule. I can remember two colleagues of mine, men I had known for many years, who were accused of discussing the war with Iran. They were taken away and then a few weeks later their families received their bodies. They had been tortured and executed."

Dr Khweir added: "I do not agree with the death penalty, but I think Saddam deserves to be put to death, because he killed so many people himself. But I do not want revenge, just justice."

Brown backs Blair in opposition to death sentence for deposed dictator

CHANCELLOR Gordon Brown today backed Tony Blair in stating British opposition to the death penalty for former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

Mr Brown said the British Parliament had voted against the death penalty but the decision on whether to execute was up to the Iraqi authorities.

"We as a British parliament have voted against the death penalty and the general view in Britain is that the death penalty is unacceptable," he said. "But we are operating under the laws of Iraq here and it is a decision for the Iraqi authorities."

His remarks came after the Prime Minister said yesterday that he was opposed to the death penalty in the case of Saddam. But he said that decisions on whether the former dictator should be executed for his crimes were for the Iraqi courts to make. The Chancellor's remarks came as Saddam returned to court in Baghdad today for his genocide trial, two days after another Iraq panel convicted him of crimes against humanity and sentenced him to hang.

Saddam found his way quietly to his seat among the other six defendants charged over the Operation Anfal crackdown against Iraqi Kurds in the late-1980s. On Sunday, Saddam was convicted over the deaths of nearly 150 Shia Muslims following a 1982 assassination attempt against him in the town of Dujail in 1982. The case is subject to appeal, and the Anfal trial will continue while the appeal is under way.

His re-appearance in court coincided with calls for the former dictator to be kept alive as a "symbol of evil".

British soldier killed in attack on base

A BRITISH soldier was killed after an army base in Iraq came under small arms fire, the Ministry of Defence said today.

The soldier, from the 2nd Battalion The Duke of Lancaster's Regiment, died as a result of fire on a coalition forces base in Basra, in the south of the country. The MoD said there were no other casualties in the incident.

The family of the soldier, who has not yet been named, have been informed of the death, an MoD spokeswoman said.