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Arrest Made in Cell Phone Taping of Saddam's Execution

By Jeralyn, Section War In Iraq
Posted on Wed Jan 03, 2007 at 11:20:25 AM EST
Tags: Saddam Hussein (all tags)
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Iraqi officials says they have made an arrest in the investigation into who recorded a video Saddam Hussein's execution on a cell phone.

The adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media, did not identify the person. But he said it was "an official who supervised the execution" and who is "now under investigation."

Cell phones were confiscated before the execution. They believe some were smuggled in by bodyguards of those present.

Munqith al-Faroon, an Iraqi prosecutor present at the execution says he witnessed two observers using their cell phones to take pictures of the execution. He didn't know them by name but says he could identify them.

I saw two of the government officials who were ... present during the execution taking all the video of the execution, using the lights that were there for the official taping of the execution. They used mobile phone cameras. I do not know their names, but I would remember their faces," al-Faroon said in a telephone interview.

The prosecutor said the two officials were openly taking video pictures, which are believed to be those which appeared on Al-Jazeera satellite television and a Web site within hours of Saddam's death by hanging shortly before dawn on Saturday.

As for who was present at the execution:

Al-Faroon said there were 14 Iraqi officials, including himself and another prosecutor, as well as three hangmen present for the execution. All the officials, he said, were flown by U.S. helicopter to the former military intelligence facility where Saddam was put to death in an execution chamber used by his own security men for years.

Also interesting: Who spoke to CNN in the moments after the execution.

Update: The TimesOnline says three people were arrested.

Three people have been detained. They were prison officials," a government official said, requesting anonymity. "Two of them were chanting and one was filming with a mobile."

........The arrested prison officials had goaded Saddam with a chant popular among the followers of radical Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr, which one of them ended by shouting the fundamentalist leader’s name. "They were from Sadr City, but they were not militia men," the official said, referring to the Shia slum of 2.5 million people in eastern Baghdad, which Sadr controls through his Mahdi Army militia.

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    Arrest Made in Cell Phone Taping of Saddam's Execution | 30 comments (30 topical)

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    not a cell (5.00 / 1) (#1)
    by eric on Wed Jan 03, 2007 at 12:00:05 PM EST
    It didn't look like a cell phone video to me.  It did look like a video camera and it also looked like everyone knew it was being shot.

    Video (5.00 / 3) (#5)
    by glanton on Wed Jan 03, 2007 at 01:51:11 PM EST
    Illegal or not, setup or not, it's a good thing the video has circulated.  

    Lets everyone see the full-on sectarian chaos that this Iraq misadventure brought to a climax. And more importantly, it further deconstructs the myth of the purple fingers (in case there's anyone left who believes in that one); put another nail in the coffin of the  absurd idea that there's some sort of God-sanctioned gift of republican liberty being seized by grateful Iraqis.

    Most of all, let all the people who ate up the 2002 propaganda hook line and sinker, let them see what the billions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives has bought:  Not protection of us, which would be a proper role for any moral American government, but rather paving the way for fanatic hooligans to execute a rival hooligan.

    Most certainly there are still some Americans so foolish that they went to bed the night of Hussein's execution saying, Thank goodness, now we're safer.  They're funny.  

    All that being said, those who saw through the sham all along don't really have anything to learn by watching it, should spare themselves the snuff.

    Not as if Bush hasn't been down this road before (5.00 / 1) (#17)
    by Madison Guy on Wed Jan 03, 2007 at 06:51:45 PM EST
    I was wondering, in the aftermath of Saddam's grotesque execution by that gloating death squad, why there wasn't more commentary about George Bush's role the last time he was involved with executions, when he was the Death Penalty Decider for the state of Texas -- in which capacity he had been known to do his own share of gloating. Poking about on the Web, I came across an October 2000 piece about Bush published by Derrick Z. Jackson in the Boston Globe. It seems remarkably prescient now -- especially the title, "Bush's Death Factory."

    If they want to view the execution in 235:1... (none / 0) (#2)
    by Bill Arnett on Wed Jan 03, 2007 at 12:15:56 PM EST
    ...widescreen, Dolby Digital Ex 5.1 Surround sound, complete with soundtrack by the Iraqi Execution Band, I'm sure that bush would be glad to loan them his copy of the DVD he no doubt had made from the closed-circuit video feed to the Whitehouse.

    What a disgusting sham to even CLAIM that the execution WAS NOT filmed in its entirety.

    Bill A - Why cry for Saddam? (1.00 / 4) (#4)
    by jimakaPPJ on Wed Jan 03, 2007 at 12:37:13 PM EST
    There are enough bad things in the world to cry over, I don't even begin to understand why you would care if his long overdue exeution was filmed.

    Parent
    Crying for my country Jim.... (5.00 / 1) (#15)
    by kdog on Wed Jan 03, 2007 at 06:24:46 PM EST
    for being party to it.  The whole bloody mess.

    I don't hear anybody crying for Saddam.  

    Parent

    That's OK, (none / 0) (#7)
    by Al on Wed Jan 03, 2007 at 02:38:49 PM EST
    nobody expects you to understand anything, PPJ.

    Personally I think it's good that the execution was filmed, and the video circulated all over the world, so that everyone can appreciate the full disgusting spectacle as it really unfolded, and not the carefully edited official video.

    Apart from my fundamental objection to vile murder in the name of justice, no matter who the criminal is, there is, in Saddam's case, another important argument for keeping him alive and talking, which is what Saddam knew about the deals he made over the years. I suspect this is the main reason why he was snuffed so quickly.

    Parent

    Al (1.00 / 1) (#22)
    by jimakaPPJ on Thu Jan 04, 2007 at 07:01:31 AM EST
    I suspect they picked his brain clean of all the information he had that would be useful to the war effort.

    But you, of course, want to pontificate over the assistance we gave Saddam during the Iran and Iraq war.

    Here's some news, Al. We did a good thing when we did it. It stopped Iran's expansion, protected the oil supply for the US and the world, and didn't lose a single US life.

    Parent

    another GenCon violation (none / 0) (#28)
    by Sailor on Thu Jan 04, 2007 at 08:44:33 AM EST
    I suspect they picked his brain clean of all the information he had that would be useful to the war effort.
    it's against the GenCons to question him.

    Of course the whole trial was against the GenCons:

    7. In order to avoid any doubt concerning the prosecution and trial of persons accused of war crimes or crimes against humanity, the following principles shall apply:

    (a) Persons who are accused of such crimes should be submitted for the purpose of prosecution and trial in accordance with the applicable rules of international law; and

    (b) Any such persons who do not benefit from more favourable treatment under the Conventions or this Protocol shall be accorded the treatment provided by this Article, whether or not the crimes of which they are accused constitute grave breaches of the Conventions or of this Protocol.



    Parent
    Yes, it was officially taped (none / 0) (#6)
    by eric on Wed Jan 03, 2007 at 02:02:10 PM EST
    Josh Marshall has been on this story.  In a post, he cites a quotation from Iraq's National Security Advisor:

    the whole process from A to Z has been videoed, and it's kept in a safe place, and there was absolutely no humiliation to Saddam Hussein when he was alive, and after he was executed.

    So yes, it was videoed.  Also, this is the guy who is suspected of making the snuff video that got released.  "[A]bsolutely no humiliation" - what a disgusting liar.  And this is the Iraqi leadership.

    Parent

    Another lie... (