News Brief – November 5, 2006
The BBC reports that Saddam Hussein has been sentenced to death for Crimes Against Humanity.
Hussein’s half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti and Iraq's former chief judge Awad Hamed al-Bandar also received death sentences. While former Vice-President Taha Yassin Ramadan was sentenced to life in jail.
According to the BBC, Hussein looked “shocked and furious” as the sentence was announced, and condemned the court, the judge and the US-led occupation force in Iraq.
However, whether the man in the dock was actually Saddam Hussein is wide open to question.
It’s not a question that the BBC is likely to ask but there are
strong indications that the man Coalition authorities claim is the former Iraqi dictator is in fact one of his
many doubles. While Saddam Hussein himself is safely ensconced in a former
Soviet Republic, having been allowed to
escape the country shortly before the US led invasion.
The BBC's world affairs editor John Simpson reports “that after his tirade, which was clearly deliberate”, the man Coalition authorities claim is Saddam Hussein, “seemed to have a small smile of triumph on his face as he was led away from the courtroom.”
His smile was one of self-satisfaction, pleased as he was at his performance and having duped so many in the mainstream media. Like John Simpson and the vaunted British Broadcasting Corporation.
Moreover, whether the man claimed to be Saddam will actually be executed is another moot point. As we have reported elsewhere, the execution of Timothy McVeigh was also
highly suspect and this seems to follow a similar pattern.
A show trial in which a fake figure of notoriety is put on display followed by a sentence of death, which is never carried out. Instead, the bogeyman is given plastic surgery and relocated with a brand new identity.
While the public remains none the wiser as the mainstream media plays along, probably out of pure ignorance in this case.
Last updated 07/11/2006
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