According to the Jerusalem Post, Iraqi-born Jews had mixed reactions to the news that deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death by hanging Sunday. (With thanks: Albert)
According to Mordechai Ben-Porat, who led the underground Zionist movement in Iraq in the 1940s and '50s and today heads the Babylonian Jewry Heritage Center in Or Yehuda, Hussein "was both good and bad for the Jews. When he was deputy president in 1969, he ordered 11 Jews hanged, but when he became president, sometimes he helped them."
Regarding the sentence, Ben-Porat said, "He deserves it. We are used to hanging in Iraq, now it's his turn to test it out."(...)
"Shaul Ben-Haim, a former Israeli diplomat from Iraq, called the ruling "adequate."
"The judicial procedure was inadequate, but politically speaking, the verdict was," he said.
Yehezkel Fattal, a lawyer originally from Iraq, believes the verdict was "fair enough."
"He's worthy of his punishment and the trial was very fair," he said. "As a matter of fact, it was more fair than the trials which he conducted for his enemies. This trial was a stage for him to express himself, that's what this trial was."
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