Samar Saed Abdullah
Samar Saed Abdullah
Amnesty
Amnesty International has appealed Iraqi authorities on behalf of Abdullah and the other three women on Iraq's death row. Another group inside Iraq, the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq, is also seeking to save them.
The group's head, Dalal Rubaie, says they have successfully appealed cases of two women, including one on death row who, she says, confessed after extensive torture.
"She had her fingernails pulled; she was hung from the ceiling; they took pictures of her naked while she was hanging; they cuffed her to a bed and raped her," Rubaie says.
Father of Samar Saed says:
I wouldn't see her if she was guilty
Please sign her petition:
http://www.gopetition.com/online/12176.html
Inside the prison, Abdullah's voice trembles with fear, her large brown eyes fill with tears and her hands nervously clench.
"Give me life in prison, 20 years. Anything but this," she said from the prison's "sewing room."
She holds out hope for an appeal, but she doesn't know that the appeal has already been rejected. No one -- not even her own family -- has the heart to tell her the appeals court upheld her death sentence three months ago.
"I couldn't tell her," her mother said. "I was afraid that she would do something to herself."
Through her tears, the mother's agony is palpable. At this point, she says she'll take anything for her daughter: life in prison, a lesser sentence. Anything but the death sentence.
The family says their daughter met her husband, Saif Ali Nur, in the winter of 2004. They didn't approve of him at first, but eventually gave the couple their blessing.
Three months later, the mother says, the couple was driving to get gas when Nur suggested they stop at the uncle's house. They did just that.
Their daughter was in the kitchen washing dishes when, according to the mother, her husband locked the kitchen door and gunshots rang out. Nur is alleged to have killed her uncle, aunt and cousin.
Then, the mother says, he held Abdullah at gunpoint demanding to know where the uncle kept money and gold.
"He dragged her," the mother said. "Samar kept telling him she didn't know where the money was."
The husband left with less than $1,000 and some jewelry. The next day, he dumped his wife at the end of her street and threatened to kill her and the rest of her family if she told authorities, the family said.
Abdullah was arrested by Iraqi police that same day.
The court testimony from her trial mirrors the account the mother told CNN.
"If I thought she was guilty, I swear, I wouldn't go see her. She would get the punishment she deserves, but this is such a severe sentence," her father, Saed Abdul Majid, said.
By Arwa Damon
Please sign her petition:
http://www.gopetition.com/online/12176.html
Why cant people have a fair trial in a country which is kept in control by our troops.
The U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority abolished capital punishment in Iraq after Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003. But shortly after the government was handed over to Iraqis, the death penalty was reinstated in August 2004.
Since that time, more than 270 people have been sentenced to death, and at least 100 people -- including Hussein -- have been executed, according to Amnesty. Four women are currently on death row. Two of the women have their young children, ages 1 and 3, with them on death row, Amnesty says.
By Arwa Damon
Other related websites:
http://edition.cnn.com/video/player/player.html?url=/video/world/2007/05/09/damon.iraq.death.cnn
http://samar-saed.bravehost.com/
Tried and convicted in 1 day
Samar Saed Abdullah is among the death-row women.
She is accused of being an accessory to the murder of her uncle, aunt and cousin -- slayings that allegedly were carried out at their family home by her husband.
In the court documents from her trial, she admitted to confessing she had gone to her uncle's house with her husband with the intent to steal, but she says she made that confession as a result of being tortured.
In reaching its verdict, the court disregarded her testimony on the grounds that her confession was closer to the date of the crime.
She was tried and convicted in a single day, August 15, 2005.
"She didn't confess," her mother, Hana'a Abdul Hakim, told CNN. "It was from the beating they gave her. She was bleeding. She finally said write what you want, just stop."
Under Iraqi law, her claim to confessing under torture should have been investigated, but it wasn't. CNN's repeated queries to the Higher Judicial Council and the Ministry of Justice went unanswered.
"The judiciary is no longer involved, and nothing can be done unless new evidence comes to light, which is unlikely," her appeals lawyer, Ali Azzawi, said.
Online petition - Samar Saed AbdullahBy Arwa Damon
bravenet.com