Senate deputy speakers Cesare Salvi and Lamberto Dini...

Senate deputy speakers Cesare Salvi and Lamberto Dini and Senators-for-life Francesco Cossiga and Rita Levi-Montalcini were the first signatories of the motion in which the Italian Senate asks the government to withhold collaboration from the Iraqi authorities in cases in which the death penalty may be applied.
The motion, which 54 senators have supported up to now, commits the government to "uphold with the new Iraqi government Italy's and Europe's opposition to the use of the death penalty, even with regard to Saddam Hussein, and their support of the maintenance of the moratorium on executions with a view to the abolition of the death penalty by the new constitution."
The motion moreover commits the government to "reaffirm the coherent opposition of our country and the European Union to capital punishment by ruling out the facilitation, consent, acceptance or participation in any manner in the handover, physical or judicial, of any person to the Iraqi authorities until the latter furnish adequate assurances that such a person will not be subjected to the death penalty."
"This motion is the translation into a parliamentary act of the campaign 'Hands off Saddam' promoted by Hands Off Cain," Deputy Speaker Salvi declared.
"Whatever one's opinion of the intervention in Iraq, it is now necessary to work for the introduction of democratic principles in that country," Salvi said. "The removal off the face of the earth of the former Iraqi dictator would be contrary to the most noble reasons given for this intervention and would reflect negatively on the change of regime in Iraq. The abolition of the death penalty, or at least, a moratorium on executions, would signal the most evident break from the past."
A similar motion was presented earlier in July to the Chamber of Representatives, the lower house of parliament, by the first signatory Alfredo Biondi. Similar motions will be presented to the European Parliament and in other national parliaments of EU member states.