Dr. Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Saddam Hussein’s former home minister, wants $7 million from the potential buyers for the rope that was used in 2006 to execute the former president. The rope is wrapped around the neck of Saddam’s bronze statue, which the American forces removed from Saddam’s palace, in Mowaffak’s living room in northern Baghdad.
Mowaffak, who led Saddam to the gallows, said he was not looking for revenge for the three times Saddam’s security forces had imprisoned and tortured him for his political beliefs; he was filled with contempt during Saddam’s execution. Mowaffak, an opponent of the death penalty, told The Independent in 2013, Saddam deserved to be executed as a means of dampening down the insurgency ravaging the country.
“We are still suffering from that violence, but it goes back much further. The violence stems from the psychological damage Saddam and his Baathist Party inflicted on all Iraqis over 35 years. I was hoping to see him show some remorse for the terrible crimes, the hundreds of thousands of his own citizens that he and his henchmen killed. But there was nothing. I could see he was not a religious man. We had to remind him to say ‘Allahu Akbar’ [‘God is greatest’] as he was about to die,” he said.
Two Kuwaiti businessmen, a wealthy Israeli family, a bank and an Iranian religious group are interested in buying the rope.
However, the weird and wicked auction has sparked criticism from human rights groups. Since it is, “covered in hatred and ignorance,” therefore the sale of the rope must go to the treasury and used for public good, believes human rights activist Ahmed Saeed.
Caleb Maupin, a political analyst, told RT, “This just shows how cheap justice has become when they are selling the implements of execution – profits really dominate everything, nothing is really sacred. If you look at all the countries the US has invaded whether it’s Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yugoslavia, which suffered from US bombing, never did they bring stability, never did they bring peace. They bring chaos and destruction. War is really motivated by profits and this is just a further illustration of that”.
Source:
http://rt.com/news/230119-saddam-execution-rope-sale
