SPIEGEL ONLINE - January 5, 2007, 12:31 PM
URL: http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,457968,00.html
ODD MEMORIAL TO IRAQI DICTATOR
Libya to Erect Statue of Saddam on the Gallows
Libya has announced that, in memory of former Iraqi dictator Saddam
Hussein, it will erect a statue of him standing on the gallows. Iraqi
officials have arrested two guards who taunted Saddam as he was being
hanged.
Getty Images
A video taken during Saddam's execution has raised hackles across the
Sunni Muslim world.
With much of the Arab world up in arms over the hanging of former Iraqi
dictator Saddam Hussein on Saturday, it didn't take long for Libya to
jump into the fray. The government in Tripoli announced on Thursday
that it was planning to erect a statue of Saddam, depicting him
standing on the gallows. He will join a similar monument to the Libyan
freedom fighter Omar Mukhtar, a national hero who was executed in 1931
after fighting against the Italian occupation.
"The revolutionary committees have decided to erect a statue of Saddam
Hussein standing beside Omar Mukhtar on the gallows," the government
said in a press release.
Following Saddam's execution, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi declared
three days of mourning and flags on government buildings were flown at
half mast. One day prior to Saddam's death, Gadhafi had said that the
former Iraqi leader was a prisoner of war and should be tried by the
United States and Britain instead of in an Iraqi court. Saddam was
hanged for the massacre of 148 Shiites in the village of Dujail in the
1980s.
Two guards arrested; and a little boy dies
Meanwhile, the controversy over the Saddam hanging video, which shows
guards taunting the dictator on the gallows just moments before his
death, continues on Friday. Investigators have reportedly identified
the two guards who made the film with their cell phone cameras. Both
have now been arrested Sami al-Askari, an aid to Iraqi Prime Minister
Nuri al-Maliki, told Reuters. The hanging, already controversial for
having taken place on the eve of the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha, was
widely criticized due to guards yelling "Go to hell!" and chanting the
name of a Shiite cleric as Saddam died. The taunting has sparked
demonstrations by Sunnis in Iraq as well as in other Muslim countries.
"I wish, obviously, that the proceedings had ... gone in a more
dignified way," said US President George W. Bush on Thursday at a White
House news conference with visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
"But nevertheless, he was given justice. The thousands of people he
killed were not."
In a related story, investigators in Houston, Texas were looking into
the death of 10-year-old Sergio Pelico, who apparently hanged himself
after watching a news story about the hanging of Saddam Hussein. The
child apparently went into his bedroom and began recreating the scene
he had just seen on television. Officials say that it looks as though
the boy's death was the result of a tragic accident.
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