>Quotes from Amnesty International:
>
>"Obviously we deplore the verdict of the death penalty against Saddam and one of his co-accused.
>
>We don't consider it was a fair process. The court was not impartial. There were not adequate steps taken to protect the security of defence lawyers and witnesses...
>
>Every individual has a right to a fair trial, even people accused of the crimes of the magnitude that Saddam Hussein faced, and this has not been a fair trial."
>
>It should be noted that AI is opposed to the death penalty on principle.


The verdict in Saddam Hussein's trial (using American spelling, possibly wrong) is of course big news and worthy of discussion. I'm just curious why you framed your post about a breaking news story in the context of a press release from Amnesty International. They're not the story; they're an organization issuing an opinion / POV *about* the story. So I guess I'm curious why you started with their statement.

Personally, the first impression when I saw the headline on cnn.com early this morning was not surprise at the verdict. If the guilty verdict wasn't a fait accompli from the word go, the writing on the wall was easy enough to read when American and Iraqi security forces announced on Friday that Baghdad and other parts of Iraq would be locked down under a curfew even before the verdict was announced. Hmmm, we can't possibly imagine where this is headed.

What also caught my attention was the sentence of death by hanging. Why not behead him publicly? That's the flavor of the day in Islamic countries, isn't it, proudly broadcast for all the world to see? Or death by stoning, maybe. Let's have some proper Sharia here.