Iraq executes first convict after Saddam
Foreign Desk Report

BAGHDAD—Iraq hanged three convicted criminals on Thursday, the first time the government has carried out the death penalty since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, government spokesman Laith Kubba said.
The executions could pave the way for similar death sentences against Saddam and senior aides awaiting trial.
“At 10 a.m. (0600 GMT) in Baghdad the first executions were carried out since the fall of the regime, against three criminals,” Kubba told a news conference. He said Bayan Ahmed Said, Uday Dawood Salman and Dhahar Jasim Hassan were hanged in Baghdad. He declined to say exactly where. The men’s ages were not available.
It was not clear who carried out the execution. Hanging, applied in Iraq under British colonial rule, is not a simple procedure since it is meant to break the neck to ensure a quick death. It was not clear if an executioner trained under Saddam had conducted it. Iraq’s three-man presidency had signed the death sentences for the three men, found guilty by a criminal court in Wasit province in southeast Iraq of murder, kidnapping and rape.
President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, excused himself on personal moral grounds from signing the death warrant but delegated his powers to one of his two vice-presidents. Thousands of Iraqis have died violently since the 2003 US invasion, with insurgents battling US troops and the US- backed government. Ordinary crime has also become rampant.
European governments and human rights groups had hoped the death penalty would be outlawed in Iraq after the US invasion ended the rule of the Baath party, accused of killing hundreds of thousands of people.
But Iraqi leaders and their US sponsors have other views. “This is not an easy thing to do,” Kubba said. “Despite all the condemnation from states who want us to abolish capital punishment, I think capital punishment will help us deter some criminals”.
President Bush supports the death penalty, and has said he favors death for Saddam Hussein if he is convicted in a trial expected to begin later this year.
Talabani has said that he would never sign a death sentence against anyone, including Saddam himself.