Indeed I had the rare opportunity to meet one of the judges that tried Saddam - Saeed al Hammash held a conference at my school. I was expecting a very tough and harsh man, because I was thinking that you would have to be like that in order to sentence a man to death. I'm not saying that Saddam did not deserve the capital punishment, I'm just saying that if it were up to me to make that decision I don't know if I could have made it. Last year when they decided that Saddam would be executed, there was a question that kept crawling in my mind: how do you put your human side apart and just make the decision based only on the facts? and afterwards how do you live with the thought that you put a man to death? So I finally got a chance to ask that. I hoped I wouldn't get an answer like: "we had to do what was right for the people of Iraq" and I didn't. He sighed and he told me that it was a very hard decision. Both because as he said "nobody has the right to take the life of another person, only God has that right", but also because they knew the humane side of Saddam. They knew him both as a great leader that made Iraq one of the richest countries in Middle East and they knew him as a vicious murderer that was now on trial for genocide. What they did though, was put aside their feelings and made the decision based on the evidence. Although it was incredibly hard, they tried to make an objective decision. He made a very clear distinction between what he would have made as a human being and what he did as a judge, stressing on the fact that judges are not superior to the rest of the humans, but they have a bigger responsibility for the people.
The second thing I could not understand was why they released the execution to the media. Well they didn't! (or at least that is what he says). It seems that the footage with Saddam's execution was released because of some mistake that the authorities made. Now I'm not sure if that is true, but he pointed out that it was something that should have never been done and with that I agree.
He also explained in detail that he was forced to resign from his position and was accused of having been part of Saddam's political party, all of which proved not to be true and he was acquitted by the authorities. He believes that this was only a strategic political move because he insisted that Saddam would receive a fair trial according to the international laws.
It seems to me that the political pressure was immense, not only from the Iraqi, but also from the US and, more than that, there was also a matter of security as he feared for his life and for his family.
All in all, it was a chance in a lifetime to see, meet and talk to a man that helped write history.
The second thing I could not understand was why they released the execution to the media. Well they didn't! (or at least that is what he says). It seems that the footage with Saddam's execution was released because of some mistake that the authorities made. Now I'm not sure if that is true, but he pointed out that it was something that should have never been done and with that I agree.
He also explained in detail that he was forced to resign from his position and was accused of having been part of Saddam's political party, all of which proved not to be true and he was acquitted by the authorities. He believes that this was only a strategic political move because he insisted that Saddam would receive a fair trial according to the international laws.
It seems to me that the political pressure was immense, not only from the Iraqi, but also from the US and, more than that, there was also a matter of security as he feared for his life and for his family.
All in all, it was a chance in a lifetime to see, meet and talk to a man that helped write history.
No comments:
Post a Comment