Panel to look into taunts at execution
Protests over Saddam Hussein’s execution continued Tuesday inside and outside Iraq as Prime Minister Nouri Maliki ordered an Interior Ministry committee to identify who taunted the ousted dictator and released footage of his hanging.
Officials said the panel probably would question everyone present at Saturday’s hanging. The Iraqi government did not say what, if any, punishment would result.
Munqith Faroon, an Iraqi prosecutor who helped convict Hussein for the 1982 killings of 148 Shiite Muslims from the town of Dujayl, said two top officials had their cellphones with them, but he didn’t name them. Another official said Monday that guards had camera phones.
The Vatican’s official newspaper on Tuesday decried media images of the hanging as a “spectacle” violating human rights. The Italian government said it would push at the United Nations for a worldwide moratorium on capital punishment.
Within Iraq, the execution and the way it was conducted have provoked anger among Hussein’s fellow Sunni Arabs, who have taken to the streets in mainly peaceful demonstrations.
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