SURELY no one would disagree with the contention that Saddam Hussein was a wicked man. He was sadistic, vainglorious, and his regime was monstrous. His sentence was just' for the 148 murders at Dujail, but we all know he was responsible for the deaths of somewhere between 200,000 and 400,000 people.

If anyone deserved the death penalty, it was Saddam. And yet it should not have been carried out. The death penalty is morally wrong, no matter who it is for. It is offensive and ethically unacceptable. Although our first instinct may be to inflict pain on someone who wrongs us, the standards of a mature society demand a more measured response.

"Judicial execution" is simply another form of killing a man in cold blood. Nobody can bring back the tortured from the dead.

Vengeance begets vengeance, and the memory of Saddam's victims deserves a more profound response than yet another cold-blooded murder.

I would have preferred he rot in jail without the possibility of parole, having the rest of his life to reflect upon his crimes - after all, the permanent removal of freedom is actually a stronger punishment than death.

And the wall-to-wall coverage of his hanging was appalling. The pictures of Saddam with a noose around his neck are the worse kind of voyeurism and the stuff of snuff movies.

It was degrading and inappropriate.

The notion of an eye for an eye, or a life for a life, is a simplistic one which a just society should never endorse.

We do not allow torturing the torturer, or raping the rapist. Taking the life of a murderer, even one as evil and abhorrent as Saddam, is a similarly disproportionate punishment. Revenge is not an acceptable moral or ethical justification for murder.

Coun Paul Blanchard, Chaucer Lane, York.

  • NOW that Saddam Hussein has been executed for crimes against humanity, can we expect the international community to press for the indictment of the President of the United States of America, chief of staff of the armed forces, to be indicted for similar crimes?

He is undoubtedly responsible for the deaths of thousands of Iraqi citizens who would still be alive today but for the decision to invade Iraq, a decision of dubious legality.

The Right Hon. A Blair esq is also implicated in this matter, due to his slavish compliance with Mr. Bush's foreign policy in the Middle East, and does not have much to be proud about as he comes to the end of his last term of office.

Andy Baldock, Heworth Green, York.