Taha Yassin Ramadan, Saddam Hussein's vice president, has been sentenced to death for crimes against humanity. "The condemned Taha Yassin Ramadan shall be sentenced to hanging until death for committing deliberate killing crimes," Judge Ali al-Kahachi said, after the Iraqi High Tribunal met to review an earlier life sentence.
"This is in accordance to the higher criminal court and the penal court law," the judge added, according to AFP. Following the verdict, Ramadan shouted Monday: "I swear to God I am innocent. May God support me. May God take revenge against everyone who rendered me injustice."
US-based Human Rights Watch had urged Iraq not to impose the death penalty because they said there was insufficient evidence linking Ramadan to the murders of Shiite villagers from Dujail, north of Baghdad, in the 1980s. "The tribunal found Ramadan guilty without evidence linking him to the horrific crimes committed in Dujail," said Richard Dicker, of the organization's International Justice Program.
