SADDAM: VOTE ME IN AS YOUR PRESIDENT <TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=390 border=0><TBODY></TBODY></TABLE><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=* border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>Sep 19 2004




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</TD></TR><TR><TD colSpan=2>By Justin Penrose



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SADDAM Hussein is planning to stand in elections to reclaim the Iraqi presidency from his jail cell.




The former tyrant - captured in an underground bunker last year - has told advisers that he wants his name on the ballot paper for the January elections.

His legal team were only granted access to the former leader last week, nine months after he was caught.

Hussein, 67, who is no longer in Iraq but in a secret location, has said he is determined to stand as President and put up candidates from his old Ba'ath Party. His lawyer Giovanni di Stefano said there was no chance of his client being tried before the January elections as the Interim Government had hoped.

"It is the intention of his excellency President Saddam Hussein not only to candidate members of the Ba'ath Party in the January elections but to candidate himself as President. Nothing in international law or international jurisprudence precludes that.

Mr di Stefano, who said that Hussein has still not been charged, added: "In light of the worsening situation in Iraq, the instability and lack of leadership it is probable that he would have a majority vote more than sufficient to restore him to the rightful President of Iraq.

"In the last elections he received 98 per cent of the vote and in a recent poll conducted by Gallup on behalf of the state 40 per cent of those polled voted for Saddam to be executed and 42 per cent elected for him to be reinstated as President.

"That was five months ago."


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http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/news/t...name_page.html