Court Upholds Death Penalty for Hussein
    By Christine Hauser
    The New York Times

    Tuesday 26 December 2006

    An Iraqi appeals court today upheld a death sentence for Saddam Hussein in a decision that could clear the way for Mr. Hussein's execution within 30 days, Iraqi officials told news agencies.

    The announcement came today as at least 20 people were killed and dozens were injured in bomb and mortar attacks in the capital.

    The court was reviewing a Nov. 5 verdict in which Mr. Hussein and two of his top associates, Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti and Awad al-Bandar, were sentenced to "death by hanging" for their involvement in the arrest and killing of 148 Shiite men and boys in the town of Dujail in 1982.

    "The court just upheld the verdict and sentence," Iraq's national security adviser, Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, told Reuters.

    Reuters and other news agencies also quoted a court official, Raid Juhi, as saying that the verdict had been upheld.

    It was not immediately clear when the execution under the verdict could be carried out, but under Iraqi law it is supposed to happen within 30 days of the final appeal. Mr. Hussein is currently being tried in a separate case on charges of genocide in connection with the deaths of 50,000 Kurds in a campaign that ultimately killed 180,000 Kurds in the 1980s.

    The Shiite-led government has argued for a swift execution, saying that as long as Mr. Hussein is alive, he remains a powerful source of motivation for elements of the Sunni Arab insurgency fighting to restore him to power.

    Earlier this year, Mr. Hussein's chief lawyer, Khalil al-Dulaimi, said that Mr. Hussein had been expecting a death sentence handed down by the Iraqi court trying him on charges of crimes against humanity.

    "Saddam Hussein is convinced of this," Mr. Dulaimi said. "He knows the sentence has been issued from Washington, and if there's an even greater punishment than the death sentence, he'll get it."

    In violence today, three car bombs exploded in a Baghdad neighborhood, according to an interior ministry official, killing 15 people and injuring 70. A police officer was killed when a mortar landed near a tanker of gas near a mosque in central Baghdad, and a bomb went off in a market in the center of the city, killing 4 and wounding 18, the official said.

    The killing in Baghdad in recent months has primarily been the result of sectarian violence, as Shiites have sought to drive Sunnis from mixed neighborhoods and Sunnis have retaliated.

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    Employees of The New York Times in Baghdad contributed to this article.