Sentence delayed on Saddam deputy

25/01/2007| IslamWeb

An Iraqi has judge postponed a session in which Taha Yassin Ramadan, Saddam Hussein's former deputy, had been expected to be sentenced to death after his lawyers  failed to attend court.

Aan appeals court ruled last month that Ramadan's previous sentence of life in prison was too lenient and that he should receive the death penalty.

Ramadan was accused in the Dujail case, which focused on the government's killing in 1982 of 148 Iraqis in a town north of Baghdad after an assassination attempt there against Saddam.

On November 5, he was convicted of murder, forced deportation and torture and sentenced to life in prison.

No show

Ali al-Kahishi, an aide to Raouf Abdul-Rahman, the chief judge, said the session will be adjourned until February 12 "because the plaintiff's lawyers are not present in the court because they were not notified".

Ramadan was initially convicted on the same day that Saddam, Barzan Ibrahim, Saddam's half-brother and former intelligence chief, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, former head of Iraq's revolutionary court, were sentenced to death.

Three other defendants were sentenced to 15 years in jail while one was acquitted.

Saddam was hanged on December 30, and Ibrahim and al-Bandar were executed on January 15.

Baghdad bomb

In a separate development, at least four people were killed and 20 wounded when a motorcycle blew up in a busy market in central Baghdad.

The police said the motorcycle was parked at the side of the street at the entrance of Shurja market.

On Monday, a double car bombing near Baghdad's Bab al-Sharji market killed 88 people.

PHOTO CAPTION

Iraq's former vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan speaks during final arguments for their trial in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone July 27, 2006.

Al-Jazeera