One of Iraq's top Shiite politicians, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim,...

One of Iraq's top Shiite politicians, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, said during a visit to Iran that ousted president Saddam Hussein deserved the death penalty for his war against Iran as well as other crimes.
"Saddam committed many crimes, one of the most important of which is the attack againt Iran which killed hundreds of thousands of Iranians and Iraqis," Hakim told a press conference.
"In Iraq we have the death penalty, and alot of crimes committed by Saddam Hussein merit the death penalty," added the leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), an Iranian-backed Shiite religious party. Saddam sparked an eight-year war with Iran when he attempted to profit from Iran's revolutionary turmoil by making a land grab into the oil-rich Iranian southwest in 1980.