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Latest News in Brief
Compiled from wire service reports by staff.
WORLD
Iraq court upholds Saddam Hussein death sentence
Posted: Tuesday, December 26, 5:06pm EST
Iraq's highest court rejected Saddam Hussein's appeal Tuesday and said the former dictator must be hanged within 30 days for his role in the 1982 slayings of 148 Shiite Muslims from a town where assassins tried to kill him.
"From tomorrow, any day could be the day" Saddam is sent to the gallows, the chief judge said.
The ruling could stoke Iraq's sectarian rage, with the Shiite majority demanding Saddam's death and most in the formerly dominant Sunni Arab community calling the trial tainted.
In upholding the Saddam sentence imposed Nov. 5, the Supreme Court of Appeals also affirmed death sentences for two of his co-defendants, including his half brother. And it said life imprisonment for a third was too lenient and demanded he be given the death penalty, too.
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