UP to 160 Arab fighters had appeared in Iraqi courts charged with carrying out terrorist attacks and could face the death penalty if convicted, the justice minister said today.
| Give them a quick trial, followed by an even quicker execution. |
"The Arabs have been referred to Iraqi courts and the verdicts against these foreigners are due to be pronounced soon for acts of terror they carried out in Iraq," Malik Dohan al-Hassan said. He said those on trial included Egyptians, Iranians, Jordanians, Lebanese, Syrians, Yemenites and Moroccans. "The crimes committed in Iraq would be judged according to Iraqi law, which reserves the death sentence for those charged with premeditated murder or those who carry out a car bombing to kill the biggest number of people," he said. Capital punishment, which was in force under the ousted regime of president Saddam Hussein, was reinstated by the interim government on August 8 after being abolished by the previous US-led occupation authority. Both the Government and US-led forces accuse foreign fighters, particularly those linked to Jordanian-born militant Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, of carrying out some of the worst car bombings and killings in Iraq. |