[JURIST] Saddam Hussein defense lawyer Curtis Doebbler, one of the two Americans on Hussein's Dujail trial team, has condemned the ousted Iraqi president's execution [JURIST report] in a statement sent to JURIST only minutes after his client was hanged in Baghdad at dawn Saturday local time:

The execution of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is 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.

One cannot imagine a greater inspiration to violence against America and her allies than the action taken this morning. The way that the former Iraqi President, and now brave martyr, stood up to the most powerful, deadly and lawless army in the world almost single-handedly for more than a decade will undoubtedly contirbute, as an inspiration, to violence against American interests all over the world.

One can only hope that a new year will bring the prosecution of those who have perpetrated this violation of international law starting with the American President and his governmental allies to the American jurists and their colleagues who willingly worked to ensure an unfair trial and an extrajudicial and summary execution. One can also not but hope that those who pursue these individuals will not use the same illegal means to bring them to justice that they have encouraged by their example, but rather that the law will be used to bring them to justice and restore the integrity of the law that has been lost by this illegal action.

My heart felt sympathies go out to the family of the President and all the Iraqi people who suffer yet another injustice at the hands of American aggressors.