Man Arrested Over Saddam Footage(according to al Arabiya television)

[maddezmom]

The man who took mobile phone footage of Saddam Hussein's execution has been arrested, according to al Arabiya television. The video showed the procedure to be less dignified than it had seemed in the official video.

Saddam is taunted on the footage, while it also shows the moment when he died, which is not featured in the official film.

The Prime Minister, Nouri al Maliki, ordered "the formation of an investigative committee in the Interior Ministry to identify who chanted slogans inside the execution chamber and who filmed the execution and sent it to the media," an adviser said.

A prosecutor who was a witness to the hanging said some of the taunting came from guards outside the execution chamber, and not the masked ones who put the noose around Saddam's neck.

Munqith al Faroon said two top officials had their mobile phones with them, even though the government-approved witnesses had phones taken from them before boarding the helicopter which took them from the Green Zone to the site of the execution.

more:http://uk.news.yahoo.com/03012007/140/man-arrested-saddam-footage.html

[saigon68]

1. the masked ones who put the noose around Saddam's neck

Those Photos will herald the Chimp's victory in Iraq-Nam in the history books 50 years from now

[Waya]

2. The video showed the procedure to be less dignified than it had seemed in the official video.

Hmmm.....so now they are upset people got to see the way this really went down - instead of just the 'sanitized' Government version, incredible. So typical, really. It's ok to commit barbaric acts - as long as they are presented to the public in a clean, bitesize and watered down manner afterwards. Gawd forbid that people actually get to see the true horror committed in their name..........

[Cass]

9. Agree with you 100%

Last night the footage was shown again on CNN or MSNBC and I was struck by the flashbulbs popping. What a disgraceful spectacle.

[MaineDem]

3. A true case of "kill the messenger"?

Instead of discussing the undignified way Hussein was hanged they're going after the person who is providing the facts. Nice.

[DoYouEverWonder]

4. They still won't be able to escape

from the damage those images have done to them.

[magellan]

5. The puppet has the same M.O. as his master

These people aren't leaders who care about right and wrong; they're THUGS who won't stand for being embarrassed.

[hang a left]

6. Only two "top officials" had their mobiles

All other witness phones were confiscated prior to their trip to the green zone.

Face it, it was recorded on purpose and uploaded to the web for one reason only. To incite more violence and to spit on their holy holiday.

[maddezmom]

7. AP's headline: Official held in Saddam hanging video

!snip!
On Wednesday, an Iraqi prosecutor who was also present at the execution denied a report that he had accused National Security Adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie of possible responsibility for the leaked video.

"I am not accusing Mowaffak al-Rubaie, and I did not see him taking pictures," Munqith al-Faroon, a prosecutor in the case that sent Saddam to the gallows, told The Associated Press.

"But I saw two of the government officials who were ... present during the execution taking all the video of the execution, using the lights that were there for the official taping of the execution. They used mobile phone cameras. I do not know their names, but I would remember their faces," al-Faroon said in a telephone interview.

The prosecutor said the two officials were openly taking video pictures, which are believed to be those which appeared on Al-Jazeera satellite and a Web site within hours of Saddam's execution.

The New York Times on Wednesday reported that al-Faroon told the newspaper "one of two men he had seen holding a cell phone camera aloft to make a video of Mr. Hussein's last moments up to and past the point where he fell through the trapdoor was Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Mr. Maliki's national security adviser."

more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070103/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_saddam_video

CNNI had al-Rubaie on a while earlier refuting the charges

[ClintonTyree]

8. I'm willing to bet....

that Bush wanted a copy of that video ASAP. He'll add it to his sick collection of other Saddam memorabilia. I can imagine the demented asshole strutting around his pig farm in Crawford watching the video again and again and again.

[soothsayer]

10. just like with abu ghraib, they are troubled by the leak, not the

incident.

[FreeStateDemocrat]

28. Damn Straight, corporate whore media misses the real story again/still.

[Tempest]

11. There's more than one video, and possibly film pictures

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/uh-there-were-obviously-two-videos-of.html

[Cass]

29. From your link...

Also note in the video that there are several flashes as pictures are being snapped. That means the recording of the event was hardly surreptitious. They knew it was going on, and they didn't care.

This is very evident on the footage being played over and over again on the cable news. They had to know flashbulbs were going off, you can't hide that, and those flashbulbs went off several times.

[maddezmom]

12. Al-Rubaie: 2 more arrests expected in connection with Hussein execution video

Al-Rubaie: 2 more arrests expected in connection with Hussein execution video
BAGHDAD (CNN) -- At least two more arrests are expected in connection with cell phone video that showed taunting from Shiites in the moments before the former Iraqi dictator was hanged, Iraq's national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie told CNN.

A security guard present at the execution has already been detained, Iraqi officials said. (Posted 12:20 p.m.)

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/01/03/wednesday/index.html?section=cnn_latest

Just saw the interview on CNNI, the anchor kept asking how did you not see people with cell phones filming.. he finally relented he saw phones but not the filming. :eyes:

[sabra]

13. the man is spinning out of control. al-Rubaie is knee deep in this

and it's about to hit the fan...

[maddezmom]

14. it's on again, and he's saying it was blown out of proportion and at the same time

he says whomever released it intended to cause harm.

Iraq says Saddam video meant to stir trouble
03 Jan 2007 16:38:40 GMT
Source: Reuters
Printable view | Email this article | RSS <-> Text <+>

By Ibon Villelabeitia

BAGHDAD, Jan 3 (Reuters) - Facing criticism over an illicit video of Saddam Hussein's hanging, Iraqi officials said on Wednesday the execution chamber had been infiltrated by outsiders bent on inflaming sectarian tensions.

Authorities were questioning a guard at the prison where Saddam was executed on Saturday as part of a government probe into who filmed and leaked the video, which has caused angry demonstrations among Saddam's fellow Sunni Arabs and sparked international condemnation.

The video, which has also discomfited the United States, shows a composed-looking Saddam subjected to sectarian taunts hurled by Shi'ite observers as a noose is put around his neck.

"Whoever leaked this video meant to harm national reconciliation and drive a wedge between Shi'ites and Sunnis," said National Security Adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, one of a group of 20 officials and other witnesses who were present at the execution at dawn on Saturday.

more: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IBO357385.htm

[maddezmom]

15. He also said the NYT has apologized for saying he was an official with a cell phone

and will be issuing a retraction. CNNI is confirming the NYT is going to issue a retraction. :shrug:

[StrictlyRockers]

16. (NYT) Hussein Guard Is Arrested, Officials Say

Um, Sir, I think we have found a scapegoat for that disgusting video.

Hussein Guard Is Arrested, Officials Say

By JAMES GLANZ
Published: January 3, 2007

BAGHDAD, Jan. 3 — The Iraqi prime minister’s office gave its first public defense today of the way the government carried out the execution of Saddam Hussein, and said that a guard who they believe recorded the moment in a macabre unauthorized video had been arrested. The video and the scenes it depicts have prompted a wave of revulsion around the world.

Iraqi officials sought today to challenge the impression created by the video that Mr. Hussein, for all his brutal crimes, behaved with far more dignity in his final minutes than his seemingly thuggish executioners did. The Iraqis also defended their decision to resist American pressure to delay the hanging until after a Muslim holiday, when remaining legal issues could be resolved.

“The execution operation has been mischaracterized for political purposes,” said Sadiq al-Rikabi, an advisor to prime minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki who was present at the execution of Mr. Hussein. “What has happened is not an insult or degradation.”

Even as Mr. Maliki’s government tried to defend its actions, though, the United States military sought to distance itself from any responsibility for the scenes depicted in the video. American forces held Mr. Hussein in custody from his capture until he was transferred to Iraqi control a few minutes before he was hanged. “You know, if you’re asking me, ‘Would we have done things differently,’ yes, we would have,” said Major General William Caldwell, an American military spokesman in Baghdad, at a press briefing today. “But that’s not our decision. That’s an Iraqi government decision.”

The arrest today of a guard, most likely one of the men seen in the video wearing leather jackets and ski masks, was also met with skepticism. Some American officials suggested that Iraq was seeking a low-level scapegoat to carry the blame for the almost Gothic display of intimidation and death seen in the video.

<...>
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/03/world/middleeast/03cnd-iraq.html?_r=1&ex=157680000&en=c231be529c757215&ei=5124&partner=digg&exprod=digg&oref=slogin

How convenient.

[htuttle]

17. "...suggested that Iraq was seeking a low-level scapegoat to carry the blame..."

Gee, I wonder where they learned THAT trick...

:eyes:

[54anickel]

18. Seems everyone's mastering Chimpy's favorite game

[Trajan]

19. The problem ISNT the video itself ....

The problem is the BEHAVIOUR which the video honestly depicts ....

Figures that the one who shows the REALITY of the scene is the one who is arrested ....

IF they DIDNT want a video showing them participating in a brutal lynching, then perhaps they SHOULDNT HAVE HAD THE LYNCHING .....

[54anickel]

20. Link?...n/t

[StrictlyRockers]

22. Thanks for prompting me. I forgot the link in the OP.

[54anickel]

24. You're welcome, and please excuse my poor manners. I should have

posted "Link please?" I tend to be a lazy typist, but that's no excuse for bad manners. :hi:

[originalpckelly]

21. Doin' a heckuva job guardie.

:eyes:

[Lone_Star_Dem]

23. What good will this to to quell the anger of the Sunnis?

How does this dispel that he was hanged on a Sunni holy day and taunted with references to Moqtada al-Sadr immediately prior to his hanging?

Seems like a waste of a scapegoat to me.

[truthisfreedom]

25. Enough bullshit.

I'm sick of it already.

[Missy M]

26. At least the guard let the world know what really went on....

and the propaganda that was first put out was false. It must have stuck in Bush's craw that Saddam died with dignity.

[2Design]

27. again - the one who records the crime is the criminal and not the criminals - rummy logic

it is the picture taker and not the dispicable acts at gitmo or at murders or at hangs or at torture - and the news media buys into it every time - they are so co-dependent enablers

[Rosa Luxemburg]

30. did the video show saddam struggle?