IRAQ. PRESIDENT NOT OPPOSED TO DEATH PENALTY FOR SADDAM

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said he was not opposed to the death for ousted dictator Saddam Hussein, currently on trial for crimes against humanity, but would not sign the decree to authorise it.
"I will not sign, neither his sentence nor that of anybody else," Talbani told the Italian daily Il Corriere della Sera, before adding, "I didn't say that I would be opposed to this sentence".
"I will take a day off (the day a decree has to be signed). The two other vice presidents can sign, if they want to. We have already acted in this way more than a dozen times," the Iraqi president said. Opposed to the death penalty, Talabani had indicated at the beginning of the month that Saddam Hussein deserved to "die a hundred times".