Great Britain may refuse to hand over evi­dence of Saddam Hussein’s crimes to Iraqi pros­e­cu­tors or per­mit gov­ern­ment staff to tes­ti­fy against the for­mer dic­ta­tor because of the nation’s oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty. Despite human rights objec­tions from British offi­cials who helped estab­lish the spe­cial tri­bunal that will try Hussein and oth­er senior mem­bers of his regime, Iraqis have insist­ed that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment remain a sen­tenc­ing option for some crimes. Coalition forces have sus­pend­ed the death penal­ty dur­ing their occu­pa­tion of Iraq, but it is antic­i­pat­ed that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment will be rein­stat­ed fol­low­ing the return of pow­er to the Iraqi peo­ple at the end of June, which is pri­or to Hussein’s tri­bunal. ​“The U.K. gov­ern­ment has made it clear that it oppos­es the use of the death penal­ty. It will be up to the new Iraqi gov­ern­ment to deter­mine whether this pun­ish­ment will be rein­stat­ed fol­low­ing the trans­fer of author­i­ty. After the trans­fer of pow­er to the new Iraqi gov­ern­ment, we will con­tin­ue to lob­by against the death penal­ty,” said British Foreign Office min­is­ter Bill Rammell (pic­tured). (Scotsman​.com News, May 23, 2004) See International Death Penalty.

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