There were mixed reactions on Sunday to Saddam Hussein's death sentence. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Shiites poured into the streets of Baghdad to rejoice, while the former president's Sunni supporters paraded through his hometown chanting, "We will avenge you Saddam."
In Sadr City, the Shiite stronghold of northeast Baghdad, youths took to the streets dancing and singing, despite a curfew declared for Sunday over the most restive parts of the country. "Execute Saddam," they chanted, according to the AP. Many carried posters of Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shiite cleric whose Mahdi Army militia effectively runs the district.
Celebratory gunfire also rang out in Kurdish neighborhoods across the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk.
"The verdict placed on the heads of the former regime does not represent a verdict for any one person. It is a verdict on a whole dark era that has was unmatched in Iraq's history," Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq's Shiite prime minister, said. "This is the fate of all those who violated the sanctity of the citizens and shed the honest blood. This is the disgraceful end to the person who brought ordeals, pains and reckless wars to this country," al-Maliki said in a television address to the nation following the verdict.
"I say to all deluded remnants of the previous regime: The period of Saddam and his party is gone as did other dictators' like Mussolini and Hitler," said al-Maliki.
In north Baghdad's Sunni Azamiyah district, clashes broke out between police and gunmen. "This government will be responsible for the consequences, with the deaths of hundreds, thousands or even hundreds of thousands, whose blood will be shed," Salih al-Mutlaq, a Sunni political leader, told the Al-Arabiya satellite television station.
Saddam and his seven co-defendants were on trial for a wave of revenge killings carried out in the city of Dujail following a 1982 assassination attempt on the former leader.
In the streets of Dujail, people celebrated and burned pictures of Saddam as the verdict was read.
In Tikrit, Saddam's hometown, 1,000 people defied the curfew and carried pictures of the city's favorite son through the streets. Some declared the court a product of the U.S. occupation forces and condemned the verdict. "By our souls, by our blood we sacrifice for you Saddam" and "Saddam your name shakes America."
Saddam's chief lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi condemned the trial as a "farce," claiming the verdict was planned. He said defense attorneys would appeal within 30 days.
The death sentences automatically go to a nine-judge appeals panel, which has unlimited time to review the case. If the verdicts and sentences are endorsed, the executions must be carried out within 30 days.
