Iraqi women to hang for acts of resistance
By LeiLani Dowell
Workers World Newspaper
Published Feb 17, 2007 7:56 AM
At a time when U.S. occupation troops and puppet Iraqi troops have committed hundreds of thousands of murders of Iraqi civilians, three women are being executed for their alleged role in the armed resistance. The Supreme Iraqi Criminal Court has sentenced the women to death by hanging, with the executions set for March 3 in Baghdad.
According to attorney Walid Hayali of the Iraqi Lawyers Union, 31-year-old Wassan Talib has been charged with the killing of five police officers in an attack on the police; 25-year-old Zainab Fadhil was charged for an attack on a joint patrol of the Iraqi and U.S. armies in Baghdad; and 26-year-old Liqa Muhammad was charged with the killing of an official in the Green Zone in the course of a kidnapping.
The attorney points out that the women were denied legal counsel before and during the trial, and therefore there was no lawyer present to appeal the convictions.
Muhammad is still nursing a child she recently gave birth to in prison. Talib has a 3-year-old daughter with her in the prison.
A fourth woman, Samar Sa’ad Abdullah, has been sentenced to execution for the murder of several family members, which she has denied. (amnesty.org)
Amnesty International notes that the Iraqi interim government reinstated the death penalty in August 2004, and that at least 65 people were executed in 2006 following the ruling. AI states that on Sept. 6 alone, 27 people were reportedly hanged, and 11 more on Sept. 21.
The Brussell’s Tribunal says in a statement, “[This] is a horrible proof that the illegal executions of Saddam Hussein and other Baath leaders were not ‘isolated’ or ‘exceptional’ incidents, but that they laid the groundwork for employment by the Iraqi ruling clique of ‘judicially sanctioned’ executions as a legitimate ‘measure’ against those who oppose their puppet regime and the illegal U.S. occupation.”
