Rizgar Mohammed Amin, Judge in Saddam Trial: I Am Against Capital Punishment

Following are excerpts from an interview with Rizgar Mohammed Amin, a judge in Saddam Hussein's trial, which aired on Al-Arabiya TV on May 24, 2013:

Interviewer: With regard to the trial of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, you said that you, personally, are against a death sentence for Mubarak. Does this apply to Saddam Hussein as well?

Rizgar Mohammed Amin: Yes, I am against capital punishment in principle. I demand that the death penalty be legally abolished throughout the Middle East...

Interviewer: Okay. I would like to further quote you...

Rizgar Mohammed Amin: ...especially in Iraq. I call upon the Iraqi authorities to stop implementing the death penalty, because no nation has suffered from the death penalty more than the Iraqi people.

Interviewer: This leads me to my next question...

Rizgar Mohammed Amin: When I was in the Kurdish parliament, I tabled a bill to stop implementing the death penalty in Kurdistan.

Interviewer: But Mr. Rizgar, some say that former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein got what he deserved when he was executed. Don't you agree?

Rizgar Mohammed Amin: I do not consider the death penalty to be a humane punishment, or a punishment that promotes deterrence or reform. I belong to the school that rejects the death penalty.

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Interviewer: Were there any Sunni Arabs among the judges in that trial?

Rizgar Mohammed Amin: Believe me, I didn't even ask that question. I think that such a question is a disgrace. A judge, an intellectual, should not ask a person whether he is Sunni or Shiite. We live in the 21st century, don't we? We must not discriminate between professionals on the basis of sectarian affiliation. This is a catastrophe in Iraq.

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