JORDAN: Supporters of executed Saddam Hussein gather to mourn death in Jordan

Jordan's Baath party set up a house of condolence for supporters of Saddam Hussein to mourn his death. Dozens of Jordanian and Iraqi Baath party members gathered in the small building in Amman to commemorate the man they called their leader. Saddam Hussein was hanged at dawn on Saturday for crimes against humanity after Iraq's prime minister rushed through an execution few believed would help stem the sectarian violence tearing the country apart. The former president, toppled by the U.S. invasion four years ago, was shown on state television going calmly to his death on the scaffold. He was to be buried within hours near his home city of Tikrit. While the news was greeted with celebration on the streets of some Iraqi towns, others have criticised the execution which they call an insult to the Arab and Muslim world. The drama of Saddam's violent end on Saturday was brought into living rooms across the Arab world with television pictures of masked hangmen tightening the noose around his neck. Separate film of Saddam's body in a white shroud also upset many viewers. Many Arabs said his hanging for crimes against humanity was provocatively timed to coincide with Eid al-Adha and would worsen violence in Iraq. "It's a tragic day in the Arab history and really what can you say about the stand of the Prime Minister of Australia. How he can justify execution for a prisoner of war, how he can justify execution for a president who has occupation of his land? I do not know if this argument can be based on human rights or what," said local Baath party member Aouni Kareis. Others said the execution would encourage insurgence in Iraq and across the Middle East. "This day is a bleak day in the history of the Arab nations and for us in the Baath, we have lost our leader, the general secretary of the Baath party Saddam Hussein, the hero that taught us a lesson we will never forget. The lesson is that we will continue resisting, and supporting the resistance in Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon and all over the Arab world until Palestine is liberated," he said. News of Saddam's death shocked Palestinians, many of whom had seen him as an Arab hero for his missile attacks on Israel during the 1991 Gulf War that ended Iraq's occupation of Kuwait.

ITN Source | December 31, 2006

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