News / Politics
Saddam Hussein Letter to Iraqi People Urges Peace
In what may be Saddam Hussein’s last chance to communicate with the Iraqi people the former dictator called on the citizens “not to hate because hate does not leave space for a person to be fair and it makes you blind and closes all doors of thinking.”
Hussein communicated his message through a letter that was posted on his former Baath Party Web site on Wednesday. A lawyer for Saddam, Issam Ghazzawi, confirmed the authenticity of the letter and said it had been written on November 5, the day he had been convicted of ordering the killings of 148 Shiite Muslims in 1982.
The letter appears on the web site one day after the Iraqi High Tribunal upheld the conviction and the sentence of death by hanging for Hussein.
While the Baath Party was disbanded after the U.S. led forces overthrew Hussein in 2003, several of its members have regrouped in Yemen. Those loyal to Saddam have threatened wide-scale blood shed if the execution is carried out.
Saddam revealed that the letter was written as a means of earning an opportunity to voice his last words before the Tribunal, an opportunity that never came. Instead, Hussein’s final words came in the form of a letter “Dear faithful people, I say goodbye to you, but I will be with the merciful God who helps those who take refuge in him and who will never disappoint any honest believer.”
According to the High Tribunal ruling, Hussein will be executed within 30-days.
