BAGHDAD: A Baghdad court has awarded seven years imprisonment in absentia to the exiled daughter of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein for promoting her father’s banned Baath party, Western media reported on Sunday.
The Baath party was banned and dissolved following the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq that toppled Hussein’s regime.
According to the court, Raghad Saddam Hussein was found guilty of promoting the activities of the banned Baath party during media interactions and television interviews in 2021.
According to Iraqi law anyone showing photos or slogans promoting Saddam regime can be subject to prosecution.
The court did not mention the exact interviews over which she was convicted.
Raghad Saddam Hussein while speaking to Arab media in 2021, discussed Iraq’s conditions under her father’s rule from 1979 to 2003.
She claimed that her father’s period was indeed a time of glory and pride for Iraq adding that the country was stable and rich at that time.
Raghad Saddam Hussein currently resides in Jordan, along with her sister Rana. Her brothers, Uday and Qusay, were assassinated by the US army in Mosul in 2003.
Majority of Iraq still considers the quarter century during which Saddam Hussein ruled as a time of brutal repression.
