KEY POINTS:
BAGHDAD - An Iraqi appeals court on Tuesday upheld Saddam Hussein's death sentence for crimes against humanity and said he should hang within 30 days.
Human rights groups condemned his trial as seriously flawed and called on the government not to carry out the sentence, which comes amid raging violence between Saddam's fellow Sunni Arabs and majority Shi'ites.
The White House called the court's decision a "milestone" in replacing tyranny with rule of law.
Sunni Arab leaders said the ruling was politically motivated by former enemies of Saddam now in power in the US-backed Shi'ite-led national unity government.
"The appeal court has approved the death sentence. They (the government) have the right to choose the date starting from tomorrow up to 30 days. After 30 days it will be an obligation to implement the sentence," the head of the Iraqi High Tribunal, Aref Abdul-Razzaq al-Shahin, told a news conference.
Saddam, 69, and two others were sentenced to death on November 5 for crimes against humanity over the killings of 148 Shi'ites from the town of Dujail after he escaped assassination in 1982.
"Every criminal should get what he deserves, whether he is Saddam or anybody else, but with a fair trial. They turned the Saddam trial into a show," said Salim al-Jibouri, an official of the Islamic Party, the largest Sunni Arab party in parliament.
Human rights group Amnesty International said the appeal court ruling came after a trial that lacked independence from political interference.
"Amnesty International is very disappointed about this decision," a spokeswoman said. "We are against the death penalty as a matter of principle but particularly in this case because it comes after a flawed trial."
Human Rights Watch, a New York-based group, also objected.
"Imposing the death penalty, indefensible in any case, is especially wrong after such unfair proceedings," said Richard Dicker, director of the International Justice programme at Human Rights Watch.
The nine-judge appeal court also upheld death sentences against Saddam's half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti and former judge Awad al-Bander for their roles in the incident.
The court recommended toughening the sentence on former Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan, who had been sentenced to life in prison over Dujail, saying he should also be executed.
Saddam's chief defence counsel, Khalil al-Dulaimi, said the ruling would inflame Iraq's sectarian divide: "If they dare implement the sentence it will be a catastrophe for the region and will only deepen the sectarian infighting," he said.
White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said Saddam had "received due process and legal rights that he denied the Iraqi people for so long".
"Today marks an important milestone in the Iraqi people's efforts to replace the rule of a tyrant with the rule of law," he told reporters.
Saddam is still on trial with six others for genocide against ethnic Kurds in northern Iraq in the 1980s. Shahin said the trial would continue without Saddam if he is executed. Saddam is scheduled to appear in court again on Jan.8.
Many human rights and legal experts have argued that Saddam could not get a fair trial in a country torn by sectarian conflict that has killed tens of thousands of Iraqis.
In the latest violence, bombs killed nearly 40 people in Baghdad, including 20 in western Adhamiya district, a Sunni area. Earlier, a triple car bombing in a Shi'ite area killed 16.
The US military reported the deaths of six more American soldiers, bringing the US toll to at least 2,978 -- five more than the number killed in the September 11, 2001 attacks.
At least 89 US soldiers have died this month, making it the deadliest this year after October's toll of 106, and increasing pressure on President George W Bush to find a strategy to extricate 135,000 US troops from the war.
The US Army Intelligence Centre in Arizona said it had stepped up its training of interrogators in an urgent effort to plug gaps in intelligence in Iraq.
Tens of thousands of Iraqis have died since the invasion in 2003 to topple Saddam Hussein, which Bush said was an integral part of the "war on terror" following September 11.
Stung by Republicans' defeats in congressional elections in which voter discontent over Iraq was a major issue, Bush has said he will announce a new strategy in January after listening to his military commanders and State Department officials.
- REUTERS
