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| |  | | Taha Yassin Ramadan | | | context : | Iraq  | | judgement place : | Iraqi Special Court | | status : | Sentenced | | particulars : | Trial before the Iraqi High Tribunal: sentenced to life in prison on 5 November 2006; appeals chamber decided on 26 December 2006 that life sentence was too light and sent case back to trial chamber for new decision; sentenced to death on 12 February 2007; hanged on 20 March 2007 | | position : | Vice-president |
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| | | | On August 19, 2003 Taha Yassin Ramadan was captured in Mosul, by fighters of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and handed over to US forces.
He was turned over to Iraq's Interim Government on June 30th 2004 and arraigned on the 1st of July 2004.
His trial started on 19 October 2005.
Taha Yassin Ramadan will at a first stage stand trial before a five-judge-panel for what is called the Dujail massacre. He is charged simultaneously with seven other former high officials (Saddam Hussein, Barzan Ibrahim Al-Tikriti, Awad Hamed Al-Bander, Abdullah Kadhem Ruaid, Ali Daeem Ali, Mohammed Azawi Ali, Mizher Abdullah Rawed, cf. "related cases") who are said to have ordered and overseen the killing, in July 1982, of more than 140 Shi'ite men from Dujail, a village 35 miles north of Baghdad. In this respect, they are charged for crimes against humanity.
The men were allegedly killed in retribution after an attack on the presidential motorcade as it passed through the village. It is alleged that apart from the killings, hundreds of women and children from the town were jailed for years in internment camps in the desert, and that the date palm groves that sustained the local economy and were the families' livelihood were destroyed.
Asked during the first court session on 19 October 2005 by the presiding judge how he would plead, Taha Yassin Ramadan pleaded not guitly.
Following a request by the defense for more time to prepare, the trial has been adjourned until 28 November 2005.
In the weeks following the first audience, serious security concerns for the defense team of Hussein and the other accused became apparent. 36 hours after the first hearing, a group of unidentified armed men dragged one of the attorneys from his office in east Baghdad and shot him dead. A few days later, the second lawyer was killed in a drive-by shooting, and a third, injured in that attack, subsequently fled Iraq for sanctuary in Qatar.
As a consequence, calls for the trial to be held abroad were heard. The defense lawyers, supported by the Iraqi Bar Association, imposed a boycott on the trial, until their security concerns were met with specific measures.
A few days before the trial was to resume, the defense team announed that it had accepted offers of protection from Iraqi and American officials and would appear in Court on 28 November. The agreement is said to include the same level of protection that is offered to the Iraqi judges and Prosecutors, with measures such as armored cars and teams of bodyguards.
After a short Court session on 28 November, during which some testimony regarding the killings in Dujail was presented, Judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin ordered a one-week adjournment until Dec. 5, to grant the defence teams time to find new counsel after one of their lawyers was killed and another fled Iraq.
On March 12, 2006, the Prosecutor announced that if Saddam Hussein and his seven co-defendants were sentenced to death in the Dujail case, the sentence would be carried out as soon as possible. Thus, the other cases for which they are indicted would not be heard in court.
On June 19, 2006, the Prosecutor indeed asked the court, in his closing arguments, that the death penalty be imposed upon Taha Yassine Ramadan, Saddam Hussein and Barzan al-Tikriti.
The trial was adjourned after the closing arguments of the defence.
On 5 November 2006, Taha Yassin Ramadan was sentenced to life in prison.
On 26 December 2006, the appeals chamber considered that a life in prison was too mild a sentence and sent the case back to the trial chamber for a new decision.
On 12 February 2007, the trial chamber sentenced Taha Yassin Ramadan to death by hanging.
Taha Yassin Ramadan was executed by hanging on 20 March 2007. | |    | | Trial Watch would like to remind its users that any person charged by national or international authorities is presumed innocent until proven guilty. | |  |  | | last time seen : | | | Bagdad (Iraq) | | | judgement period : | | | 19.10.2005 | | | charges : | | | Crimes against humanity | | | profile last modified : | | | 23.10.2007 |
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