Kifah Beyton voted for a democratic Iraq at last December’s out-of- country voting booth in Dandenong. This week he celebrated Saddam Hussein’s death sentence.By Shaun Inguanzo
LOCAL Iraqis are celebrating the death sentence imposed on Iraq’s former leader Saddam Hussein last week.
However, they say they are not getting too excited about the sentence in case it is overturned in an appeal hearing.
Kifah Beyton, 46, was an out-of-country voter in Dandenong last December for the first democratic Iraqi election since coalition forces removed Saddam Hussein.
This week the Hampton Park man said that he and a few friends kicked back with drinks to celebrate the hanging sentence.
Mr Beyton is a Chaldian Iraqi, a Christian sect from the country’s north that adjoins Kurdish territories.
He said the death sentence was justice given the atrocities Saddam committed.
“He needs to suffer the way he made us suffer,” Mr Beyton, who escaped political persecution, said.
“Saddam Hussein in 1984 liquidated about 100,000 political prisoners; he sentenced them to death.”
Mr Beyton’s sister Valentina, 26, said hanging Saddam would “cut the roots” of his following.
“If he doesn’t die his supporters will always be alive,” she said.
“Once he dies, the big head of that group dies and everything else will quieten down slowly.”
But the Beytons were cautious not to be too excited after Hussein’s lawyers announced this week they would appeal against the death sentence.
“Who knows?” Mr Beyton said. “He is probably not going to be sentenced to death. The appeal could hold off the sentence.”
