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WORLD
Hussein verdict hailed as a ‘milestone’ for Iraq, U.S.
Amid celebratory gunfire, the embattled government in Iraq declared Sunday’s death sentence for Saddam Hussein as the end of an ugly chapter and an opportunity for the strife-torn country to begin to unify. But purported loyalists to Hussein, who was convicted of crimes against humanity and murder, vowed revenge – and the nation braced itself for a potential new wave of violence.
The Iraqi court’s sentence of a hanging death gave President Bush the first opportunity in weeks to speak of a success in Iraq.
“Saddam Hussein’s trial is a milestone in the Iraqi people’s efforts to replace the rule of a tyrant with the rule of law,” he said in Waco, Texas, before launching his final pre-election campaign trip. “It’s a major achievement for Iraq’s young democracy and its constitutional government.”
In Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit, residents carried pictures of the former dictator and promised a wave of retaliatory attacks if the former president is killed.
“If our president and his colleagues are executed, rivers of blood will flow,” said a 47 year-old grocery store owner who only wanted to be referred to as Abu Ahmed. Sunni politicians complained that Hussein and his seven co-defendants were convicted before an illegitimate court, designed to serve America’s interests, not Iraq’s.
The Iraqi Special Tribunal sentenced Hussein and two of his co-defendants to death in a case, saying that they ordered the execution of 148 people after an unsuccessful assassination attempt against Hussein in Dujail in 1982. As his sentence was read, Saddam initially reverted to his more violent rhetoric.
“God is greater,” he told Judge Raouf Abdul Rahman repeatedly as the judge read the sentence: Death for murder, 10 years for forcible deportation, 10 years for torture.
“Long live the Iraqi people, damnation for the damned,” Hussein told the panel of judges. “You are the servants of the colonizers.”
Hussein faced six charges, including murder and crimes against humanity, and was convicted of all but one of the charges – of enforced disappearance. An automatic appeals process was immediately launched, so Hussein ‘s hanging could be months away. He also is still being tried for allegedly gassing thousands of Kurds in the late 1980s, and he is scheduled to be back in court Tuesday for the next hearing in that case.
NATIONAL
‘Ritual’ results in suspension for Florida fraternity
Police called to a University of Central Florida fraternity house two weeks ago found young men crawling on hands and knees, screaming profanely and wearing women’s underwear, fairy wings and a diaper.
University police released this account of the incident Thursday, the same day the national headquarters of Sigma Alpha Epsilon suspended the UCF chapter, pending its own investigation of how three men at the house ended up being taken to a hospital.
“After reviewing the police report, we are disturbed,” SAE Spokesman Brandon Weghorst said from Evanston, Ill. “That is not behavior that we expect from our members. It goes against everything that Sigma Alpha Epsilon stands for.”
UCF already has suspended the chapter from campus activities while it investigates allegations of hazing, alcohol and disorderly conduct. UCF police are conducting an investigation. Hazing is a crime in Florida.
“We take this very seriously,” University Spokeswoman Linda Gray said.
Chapter President Dru Dalton said he could not comment Thursday and referred calls to the national fraternity. UCF police responded early Oct. 26 to the on-campus fraternity house, which sports a large gold lion statue out front and purple doors. Officers heard weeping, moaning and “aggressive screaming,” according to their report.
When officers entered, they saw seven or eight men wearing bras and women’s underpants, one man sobbing on the floor wearing a rainbow-colored wig and a diaper, and all of the men crawling on the floor.
One man wearing a pink tank top, women’s underwear and a blond wig lay on the floor vomiting while another participant held his head up, the report states.
Three men were taken to Florida Hospital East Orlando because they were suspected to be highly intoxicated, according to authorities.
They were released that morning.
LOCAL/BSU
Boise police shoot, kill gunman in parking lot
Boise police shot and killed a 40 year-old man Monday during a standoff with officers in the parking lot of a Fred Meyer store at the intersection of Overland and Five Mile roads. The Ada County Coroner’s Office identified the man as Tyler J. Lowrey.
Police had been looking for the man earlier that day after his former mother-in-law reported that he had threatened her with a gun.
Boise Police Chief Mike Masterson said nearly 30 officers from Boise and Ada County Sheriff’s Offices responded to the scene and talked with Lowrey for about 20 minutes before shots rang out close to 10 a.m. Masterson said Lowrey raised a handgun he was carrying and pointed it in the direction of the police officers, prompting six officers to shoot at him. It had not been determined by Monday afternoon if the suspect’s gun had been fired.During a 20-minute conversation before the shooting, reports indicated that Lowrey said multiple times he was “not going back to prison.”
A coroner’s report found that officers shot the man eight times in the chest, abdomen and extremities. Masterson said police also used less-than-lethal weapons including beanbag shots and a Tazer.
Paramedics provided emergency treatment at the scene for the fallen man moments after the shots rang out. Lowrey was then taken to Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center, where he died at about 10:30 a.m.
Courtesy of Idaho Press Tribune
WHAT THE ?
No officer, that’s not mine
An employee of a pizza place in Coralville, Iowa, accidentally left his marijuana stash in the bank bag when he dropped the day’s receipts in the night deposit box of the local bank.
He was arrested.
MCT Campus Wire Services
