A Baghdad court has handed down a seven-year prison sentence in absentia to Raghad Saddam Hussein, the exiled daughter of the late Iraqi former president Saddam Hussein.
The charges stem from her alleged promotion of activities related to the banned Baath party, which was dissolved and prohibited after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein during the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
The verdict, delivered on Sunday, found Raghad Saddam Hussein guilty of promoting the activities of the outlawed Baath party during television interviews conducted in 2021. Present-day Iraq considers any display of photos or slogans supporting the deposed regime as grounds for prosecution.
The court ruling does not specify the exact interviews that led to the conviction. However, in 2021, Hussein spoke on the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya channel about the conditions in Iraq during her father’s rule from 1979 to 2003. During the interview, she remarked, “Many people told me that our period was indeed a time of glory, of pride,” emphasizing the stability and wealth of the country during that era.
Raghad Saddam Hussein currently resides in Jordan, alongside her sister Rana, while their brothers, Uday and Qusay, were killed by U.S. forces in Mosul in 2003. Despite differing perspectives, for many Iraqis, the quarter century of Saddam Hussein’s rule is remembered as a period of severe repression.
