Iraq sentences Saddam Hussein's daughter for promoting political party

October 23, 2023 12:15 AM

A Baghdad court on Sunday sentenced in absentia the exiled daughter of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to seven years in prison for "promoting" her father's outlawed Baath party.

The party was dissolved and banned after Hussein was toppled during the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.

According to the ruling, which AFP was able to review, Raghad Saddam Hussein was found guilty of the crime of "promoting the activities of the banned Baath party", during television interviews she gave in 2021.

In Iraq today, anyone showing photos or slogans promoting the ousted regime can be subject to prosecution.

The ruling does not indicate the exact interviews over which she was convicted.

But in 2021, Hussein spoke on the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya channel about Iraq's conditions under her father's iron-fisted rule from 1979 to 2003.

"Many people told me that our period was indeed a time of glory, of pride," she told the Saudi channel. "Of course, the country was stable and rich."

Hussein lives in Jordan, along with her sister Rana. Their brothers, Uday and Qusay, were killed by the US army in Mosul in 2003.

For the majority of Iraqis, the quarter century during which Saddam Hussein ruled is still seen as a time of brutal repression.