[JURIST] The Saturday execution [JURIST report] of Saddam Hussein [JURIST news archive] reminds the citizens of Afghanistan that the international legal community has allowed war criminals in Afghanistan to go completely unpunished over the past 25 years, an Afghani human rights leader told reporters Saturday. Ahmad Nader Nadery [official profile; TIME profile], an official of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) [official website], suggested that war crimes trials in Afghanistan could deter tribal warlords from committing future atrocities.

The AIHRC's Peace, Justice, and Reconciliation in Afghanistan Action Plan [text], published in June 2005 and accepted by the Afghan government [JURIST report] late last year, details a national strategy for coming to terms with past human rights abuses. An previous AIHRC report compiled from interviews with over 6000 Afghani citizens and published [JURIST report] called on the international community and the US-backed Afghan government to aid in the prosecution of war criminals. The AIHRC was established in 2002 under the provisions of the 2001 Bonn Agreement [text] which established the post-Taliban Afghan government.

[JURIST] Al-Arabiya [media website] satellite television is reporting that Saddam Hussein's body is being transported from Baghdad to his hometown of Ouja near Tikrit for burial, which is scheduled to occur Sunday [AP report]. The provincial governor of Salahuddin along with leaders of Hussein's Albu-Nassir clan are said to have negotiated the burial location [AP report] with US and Iraqi officials. Earlier news reports [Reuters report] had indicated that Iraq would not honor the wishes of Hussein's daughter for Hussein's remains to be transported to Yemen for burial. CNN has more.

American Hussein defense lawyer Curtis Doebbler said in a statement e-mailed to JURIST Friday that

[t]he United States government has denied the family of the former President the right to his remains if he is executed. One can only speculate that the reason for this immoral action is that the detaining power holding the Prisoner of war wants to make crystal clear its disdain for the law.

[JURIST] The execution [JURIST report] of Saddam Hussein Saturday has drawn sharp criticism from leading human rights groups. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch [press releases] both questioned whether the Iraqi appeals court thoroughly scrutinized the guilty verdict [JURIST report] of the trial court, or merely "rubber-stamped" the lower court's decision. The appeals court affirmed [JURIST report] the guilty verdict earlier this week. Both groups also said that the death penalty, which they unequivocally oppose, was particularly suspect as applied to Hussein.

Amnesty International spokesperson Malcolm Smart said that Hussein's trial

should have been a major contribution towards establishing justice and ensuring truth and accountability for the massive human rights violations perpetrated when he was in power, but [it] was a deeply flawed affair. It will be seen by many as nothing more than 'victor's justice' and, sadly, will do nothing to stem the unrelenting tide of political killings.

[JURIST] The US Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals [official website] upheld [opinion, PDF] the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) [official website] Friday after inmate Ira Madison sued the Commonwealth of Virginia and various Virginia Department of Corrections officials for a second time claiming he was refused a kosher diet as required by his religion. Madison, who considers himself a Hebrew Israelite [sect website; Wikipedia backgrounder] - a member of an African-American group who profess to be true descedendants of the lost tribe of Judah - filed his lawsuits while serving time at a Virginia state correctional facility for drug possession.

RLUIPA [text] prohibits governments from imposing regulation upon inmates that engenders religious discrimination. Prison officials have argued that the correctional facility's vegetarian, non-pork menu options fulfills Madison's kosher needs. Virginia originally responded to Madison's suits by directly challenging RLUIPA's constitutionality. The Commonwealth claimed that the Act violates the Establishment Clause and Spending and Commerce Clauses [texts], and infringes upon the state's sovereign immunity. In 2003, the Fourth Circuit disagreed with Virginia [opinion, PDF] and held that the state could adhere to RLUIPA's religious accommodations without violating the Establishment Clause.

The court's Friday ruling upheld its 2003 decision and in the face of an alternative state argument that federal funding for prisons was improperly tied to state compliance with RLUIPA affirmed that "RLUIPA is a valid exercise of Congress' spending power and that, because Virginia voluntarily accepted federal correctional funds, it cannot avoid the substantive requirements of [the Act]." The Fourth Circuit further found that since "Congress unambiguously conditioned federal funds on a State’s consent to suit... [Virginia] waived its sovereign immunity for RLUIPA damages claims." AP has more.

[JURIST] World political and religious leaders were divided Saturday in their reaction to the execution [JURIST report] of Saddam Hussein [JURIST news archive; BBC obituary]. In a statement released from his ranch at Crawford, Texas, late Friday night Eastern Time US President Bush called [press release] Hussein's trial and execution "the kind of justice he denied the victims of his brutal regime" and labeled it "an important milestone on Iraq's course to becoming a democracy that can govern, sustain, and defend itself." British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett [official profile] said [FCO statement] that Hussein and his co-defendants "have faced justice and have been held to account for their crimes. Appalling crimes were committed by Saddam Hussein's regime. It is right that those accused of such crimes against the Iraqi people should face Iraqi justice." Finnish Minister for Foreign Affairs Erkki Tuomioja [official profile], whose country currently holds the European Union Presidency [official website], reiterated [press release] the European Union's opposition to the use of capital punishment and that doubts were expressed about the impartiality of the trial. Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi termed Hussein's execution "tragic and [a] reason for sadness" on a Vatican Radio news program. In a separate statement [AP report], Lombardi also reiterated the Catholic Church's opposition to the death penalty, saying that cannot be justified "even when the person put to death is one guilty of grave crimes."

Reaction from the Arab world to Hussein's execution was mixed, drawing surprise, anger and even silence. Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi announced a three-day official mourning period and canceled all celebration of Eid, an Islamic holiday that marks the end of Ramadan. Hamas, the militant Palestinian group, condemned the execution as a political assassination that "violated international laws." Concern that the instability in Iraq will be made worse by Hussein's execution came from Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. Kuwait and Iran, meanwhile, welcomed the death [AP report] of the ousted Iraqi president since he led wars against each of those countries. Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres said Hussein had brought his punishment on himself [AFP report], and another senior Israeli official quoted by AFP said simply that "justice has been done." AP has more. BBC News additional coverage.

[JURIST] Iraqi Shiites Saturday celebrated the execution [JURIST report] of Saddam Hussein [JURIST news archive; BBC obituary]. Since the Iraqi government did not impose a mandatory curfew on Baghdad as it did in November at the time of Hussein's conviction in fear of retaliatory violence [JURIST report], hundreds of people in the Shiite part of Baghdad's Sadr City took to the street, dancing and firing guns.

Citizens of the Sunni-dominated city of Tikrit, Hussein's family home town and power base, nonetheless mourned the death of the ousted Iraqi president. Gunmen took to the streets, carrying pictures of Hussein and calling for vengeance. In Sunni-dominated Samarra, a curfew was imposed after approximately 500 people protested the execution. Scattered protests also took place elsewhere the country, in the Anbar capital of Ramadi and in Adwar, the village south of Tikrit where Hussein was captured by US troops.

A statement by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, as quoted by AP, called Hussein's execution a "strong lesson" to ruthless leaders who commit crimes against their own people. The statement went on to say that "We strongly reject considering Saddam as a representative of any sect in Iraq because the tyrant only represented his evil soul. The door is still open for those whose hands are not tainted with the blood of innocent people to take part in the political process and work on rebuilding Iraq." AP has more.

[JURIST] Lawyers for late Iraqi ex-president Saddam Hussein issued a statement [SAPA report] Saturday in response to his dawn execution [JURIST report] declaring that the former leader "died a martyr" and condemning the trial as a "political assassination" that was a "flagrant violation of international law." The statement said that the defense team "will not close the book on this matter and will pursue its struggle, using all legal paths available locally and internationally until public opinion gets the truth...".

In a separate statement e-mailed to JURIST minutes after the hanging, American Hussein defense lawyer Curtis Doebbler condemned the execution [JURIST report] in similar terms, calling it:

...an unfortunate display of arrogant aggressor's injustice by the United States of America under the leadership of American President George W. Bush. It sets back achievements in international criminal law many decades and sends a clear message to people all over the world that the United States' aggression cannot be stopped by the law. It is truly a sad day for international justice and sad beginning to a new year.

[JURIST] Video [via AP] and pictures released by Iraqi state television Saturday confirmed the execution [JURIST report] of Saddam Hussein [JURIST news archive; BBC obituary] which took place around 6 AM Saturday local time (10 PM Friday ET) at an Iraqi facility nicknamed Camp Justice [GlobalSecurity.org backgrounder] in Baghdad's Shiite neighborhood of Kazimiyah. Hussein, who had been held by the US military with other high-security detainees at Camp Cropper [Wikipedia backgrounder] near Baghdad International Airport, was transported to the facility and transferred to the custody of his Iraqi executioners.

The video shows Hussein holding a Quran as his Iraqi guards wrap a piece of black cloth around Hussein's neck as he approached the gallows. Dressed in a black suit, hat and shoes, Hussein reportedly initially resisted his Iraqi executioners but then grew calm. Iraqi state television shows footage of Hussein's guards wearing ski masks, who proceed to place a noose around his neck. He repeated a prayer after a Sunni Muslim cleric but refused to have a hood pulled over his head moments before the execution. Actual footage of his execution has not been released. Sami al-Askari, political adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, told AP that Hussein shouted, "God is great. The nation will be victorious and Palestine is Arab." Pictures on Iraqi television showed a body identified to be Saddam Hussein [AP report] after the execution, his head uncovered and the neck twisted at a sharp angle while lying on a stretcher and covered in a white shroud. AP has more. BBC News has additional coverage.

Al-Askari says that Hussein's body will most likely be buried in a secret place [Reuters report] in Iraq. Although Hussein's exiled daughter Raghad wants her father buried in Yemen, the Iraqi government will probably refuse her request. An Iraqi government official speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity earlier this month predicted the secret burial [JURIST report] and stated that no monument would be built for Hussein.

9:45 PM ET - An unofficial and quite grainy video of the entire execution sequence [alternate version], with sound [credible translation from Arabic here via Digg], is now available online via Google Video. It appears to have been shot with a cell-phone camera by a witness to the hanging. WARNING: some images may be disturbing.

[JURIST] Bulgaria has urged a speedy appeal in the retrial of five Bulgarian nurses [JURIST report] and one Palestinian doctor accused of infecting over 400 Libyan patients, primarily children [JURIST news archive]. The medics were convicted and sentenced [JURIST report] to death in their second trial on December 19 after the initial guilty verdict was overturned by the Libyan Supreme Court in 2005 and a retrial ordered [JURIST reports]. The six plan to appeal their convictions and sentences before Libya's Supreme Court in what could be the last appeal permitted under Libyan law.

Bulgaria and its allies, including the US [JURIST report] and the European Union, contend that the nurses are innocent and have said they have been tortured into admitting guilt in the case [BBC trial timeline; BBC Q&A]. Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov [official profile] and Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev [official profile] urged [press release] Libyan authorities "to intervene immediately and in the name of the simplest justice to rapidly reconsider and reject these absurd penalties and to release the Bulgarian medical workers and the Palestinian doctor."

Libya, however, has rejected criticism of the trial which Libya feels is politically motivated and biased against Muslim values. A statement by Libya's Foreign Ministry quoted by AP stated that "the positions expressed by the Bulgarian government, the European Union and others are political stances which are biased toward certain values which are not far away from inciting wars, conflicts, hostilities between civilizations and religions." Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ivailo Kalfin [official profile], who met [press release] with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last week, says Bulgaria would continue to seek a diplomatic resolution to the case. AP has more.

[JURIST] The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) [official website] approved the proposed $86 billion AT&amptT-BellSouth merger [AT&T materials] Friday, after several months delay. The telecom merger was approved [press release] 4-0 by the FCC commissioners, who found that "significant public interest benefits are likely to result from this transaction." The merger has been delayed three times [JURIST report] as the proposal has failed to gain approval from a majority of the five FCC commissioners. The fifth FCC Commissioner, Robert M. McDowell [official profile], did not vote [PDF statement; JURIST report] on the merger despite being cleared [JURIST report] to do so by the FCC general counsel, due to a conflict of interest. McDowell's recusal had left a 2-2 deadlock between the remaining commissioners over what conditions should be imposed on the merger. A consensus was reached upon the acceptance of the conditions that AT&T had proposed in a formal letter [text] sent to the FCC on Thursday.

AT&T's proposed acquisition of BellSouth was first announced in March 2006; the merger will create the nation's dominant phone company. The merger had already been approved [text] without reservation by the US Department of Justice Antitrust Division [official website] following an eight-month investigation that concluded that AT&T's proposed acquisition of BellSouth was not likely to "substantially reduce competition" in the US telecom market. CNET News has more.