LAT: Justice Is Swift and Deadly in Baghdad

[DeepModem Mom]

Justice Is Swift and Deadly in Baghdad
By Jeffrey Fleishman, Times Staff Writer


BAGHDAD — The blacksmith, the builder and the laborer were sentenced to death just before noon.

The murder victim's son cried out, "God is great! God is great!" Bowed and unshaven, the murderers were cuffed and quietly led away. Someone said they must be guilty. An innocent man would yell in protest until his voice disappeared.

The trial had lasted two hours. It was the third time since the end of Saddam Hussein's regime that the death penalty had been handed down.

Iraq is at war and justice is tenuous. The defendants at last week's trial never met the lawyer who argued their case. They weren't allowed to introduce medical or other evidence. There was no cross-examination of prosecution witnesses, because there were none. The little testimony given was mainly the denials of the accused....

***

(Presiding Judge Luqman Thabit Samiraii) acknowledged that there were cases of police brutality. But there is also an insurgent war, tribal blood feuds, suicide bombings and a Baghdad police force of 15,000 that's half the size of what is needed. In Hussein's era, the courts did the bidding of the secret police, and in the new Iraq, the courts and police feel the pull of the past as they hand out justice to a nation unaccustomed to democracy....


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-court6jun06,0,4538458.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[bemildred]

1. Bullshit, there is no "justice" in Iraq, only death. nt

[Toots]

2. Well death is Deadly

Justice is a joke but death is not and that appears to be what Iraqis face more so than other nations thanks to Bush*

[stickdog]

3. So it's "justice" when there's capital punishment without a fair trial?

[daleo]

4. Neo-con justice

Coming soon, to a country near you, as they say about the movies.