BAGHDAD, Iraq – Gunmen killed the brother of the chief prosecutor in Saddam Hussein’s genocide trial Monday, as the ex-president called in an open letter for Iraqis to forgive their American enemies and stop sectarian killings because the country’s “liberation is at hand.”
The letter appeared to be an effort by Hussein to cast himself in the role of a statesman who could reconcile and rebuild a nation now torn by intensifying sectarian bloodshed between Shiites and Sunnis.
Many Iraqis have come to believe that the United States has decided to begin pulling out of Iraq despite President Bush’s denials. And the letter seems to argue that the tide may be turning against U.S.-led foreign troops and the Shiite-dominated government they support.
“The hour of liberation is at hand, God willing. But remember that your near-term goal is confined to freeing your country from the forces of occupation and their followers, and not to be preoccupied in settling scores,” Hussein wrote in the Arabic-language letter.
Court officials said Monday that a verdict and sentence would be handed down Nov. 5 in the first trial against Hussein, for the killings of 148 Shiite Muslims from the town of Dujail after an assassination attempt against him in 1982.
Many fear the sentence – which is widely expected to be death by hanging – will further inflame sectarian animosities across Iraq, where Hussein remains popular among pockets of the once-dominant Sunni Arab minority.
The slaying of the brother of the top prosecutor in Hussein’s second trial, Imad al-Faroon, added to the fears of sectarian violence. Al-Faroon was shot and killed in front of his wife at his home in Baghdad.
His brother is chief prosecutor Muqith al-Faroon, a Shiite overseeing the case against Hussein on charges of crimes against humanity for a military campaign that killed thousands of Iraqi Kurds during the Iran-Iraq war.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
