KARACHI, Nov 6: Senior politician Mairaj Mohammad Khan has condemned the death sentence given by an Iraqi court to former President Saddam Hussain and two others, as it did not meet demands of justice.

This, however, was expected, given the US-British animosity towards Saddam Hussain and so timed by them, to help bring a swing in favour of the Republican Party in the US Congressional mid-term elections, he alleged.

Mairaj Khan said US-led war on Iraq based on false premise of Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction, in fact destroyed the country's physical and social infrastructure, caused loss of over 650,000 lives, gross violation of human rights on mass scale, and torture of prisoners.

There is now real need to set up an independent war crimes tribunal, as was done at the time of Vietnam War, to bring to trial those responsible for criminal aggression, occupation and genocide in Iraq, he added.—PPI