Execution won’t help Iraqi people

11:44am Wednesday 8th November 2006

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EXECUTING Saddam Hussein will not bring justice to the Iraqi people, an exile says.

The former dictator was sentenced to death by hanging by a Baghdad court on Sunday but Tahrir Swift believes the trial was meaningless.

Mrs Swift, of Ridgeway Crescent Gardens, Orpington, thinks it should have been conducted at a war crimes tribunal in The Hague, the Netherlands, or run fully by Iraqis because she believes it was too controlled by the Americans.

The mother-of-one thinks there are many questions about how Saddam Hussein was allowed to stay in power for so long, who turned a blind eye to his crimes against his people and who supplied him with weapons.

But the 47-year-old says these will never be answered and Saddam's death will turn him into a martyr but not stop the violence.

Mrs Swift said: "The whole trial is meaningless when there are rivers of blood flowing on the streets of Baghdad.

"Our suffering has been used to boost the American president's popularity.

"There were a hundred million ways of getting rid of the man without destroying the country.

"His death is not going to help the Iraqi people."

The peace campaigner fled Baghdad in May 1979 but still has friends and family members in the country who tell her the situation is worse now than when Hussein was in charge.

They say now there is the danger of being killed by almost anyone.

The mother-of-one said: "I don't think anybody in Iraq does not think Saddam deserves to die for his crimes.

"But things are so bad now they are pining for the days of the dictator.

"There are more people killed now than under him and you cannot say justice has been done.

"Now you step out of your house and could be killed by militias, gangs or American troops who get scared if you get too close.

"Every day bodies turn up on rubbish dumps."

The peace campaigner believes the Iraqi people could have deposed of the dictator themselves if the harsh sanctions had not been imposed in the 1990s after the Gulf War.

She thinks this made the people weak while strengthening Saddam's regime.

Mrs Swift added: "Sanctions should have been imposed on the regime, not the people."