Saddam Trial: Verdict by November-5
Pakistan Times Wire Service

BAGHDAD: The sentence in the first trial of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and his seven collaborators over the 1982 Dujail massacre will be announced by 5 November, the public prosecutor said in an interview.

The prosecution has requested the death penalty for Saddam, charging him with direct responsibility for the massacre of 148 people in the Shiite village after a failed assassination attempt.

"The court should have pronounced the sentence today but decided to delay it to 5 November for technical and administrative reasons" Jaafar al-Musawi, public prosecutor at the central criminal court.

Al-Musawi underlined that "the court will pronounce its verdict on the day indicated, when all the inquiries and all related judicial and technicial measures have been completed"

The public prosecutor explained that at the end of his summing up during the Dujail trial for the court to impose the toughest punishment, that is the death penalty, for three defendants: Saddam Hussein, his half brother Barzan Ibrahim and his deputy Taha Yasin Ramadan.●