Saddam’s ghost strikes again…Judge who sentenced Saddam to death, executed by ISIS

Just when you thought the whole ISIS, Iraq debacle could not get any worse, or weird, this news comes in from multiple news sources…

ISIS found and executed Rauf Rashid Abd al-Rahman, the judge who sentenced Saddam to death.

To provide some context to the events we have the below excerpt from Zerohedge:

Back in 2006, after the second US invasion of Iraq culminated if not with the discovery of the WMDs (which were the pretext for the invasion in the first place), but the unearthing (literally) and kangaroo court trial of Saddam Hussein, the US was quick to announce “mission accomplished.” Recent events have made a mockery of that claim, however what is truly the straw that broke the back of poetic justice, to mix metaphors, are reports from local media that as part of its blitz-campaign to take over northern Iraq, ISIS found and executed Rauf Rashid Abd al-Rahman, the judge who sentenced Saddam to death: a death which to many was the crowning moment of the second US invasion of Iraq, and the confirmation of successful US foreign policy. 

Is it safe to say that (like the curse of the Bambino haunted Boston Red Sox fans for decades) we may now have a curse of Saddam on our hands?

If this news is indeed true, then it provides a remarkable bookend to a series of missteps and blunders dating back to George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Colin Powell’s, “There is no doubt in my mind,” WMD U.N. speech…right up to U.S. President Obama’s disastrous foreign policy management and Iraq pullout.

LiveLeak first reported that Rauf Rashid Abd al-Rahman was the replacement chief judge of the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal’s Al-Dujail trial of Saddam Hussein in 2006. Rauf Rashid Abd al-Rahman’s Wikipedia page reads as follows:

Abd al-Rahman was an ethnic Kurd from Halabja, the site of the 1988 Halabja poison gas attack. He replaced Rizgar Mohammed Amin as chief judge on 23 January 2006. Amin had resigned after being criticised in the Iraqi media for appearing “too soft” on the defendants by allowing them to speak aloud in court without being recognized.

After Amin’s resignation, Abd al-Rahman headed the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal during the rest of the trial of Saddam Hussein for genocide, and when it sentenced him to death. He also sentenced to death some of his top aides.

In December 2006, Abd al-Rahman took his family to Britain on a travel visa, and three months later applied for asylum. He later cancelled his application.

In 16 June 2014, Abd al-Rahman was arrested by ISIS rebels during 2014 Northern Iraq offensive. Two days later, it was reported that ISIS captured and executed him.

ISIS has brought everything full circle, symbolically taking out the man who the U.S. government appointed to execute the very dictator who the U.S. had funded and supported for so many decades.

References:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-06-22/judge-who-sentenced-saddam-hussein-death-has-been-executed-isis-local-media-reports

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rauf_Rashid_Abd_al-Rahman