Ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein - captured over the weekend by coalition forces occupying his country - must be regretting the fact that while he was a dictator in Iraq he did not abolish the death penalty.

For now he faces the prospect of being put on trial before an Iraqi court, interrogated by American and Iraqi intelligence personnel, sent to an Iraqi jail (one of many that he built) and finally made to stand before a firing squad or forced to walk to the gallows a fate he reserved for hundreds of his own opponents during his long stay in power.

The irony of it all is that this is the man who was also lauded in the West during the 1980s as a great moderniser and the father of modern Iraq. The fact that he was also a strategic ally of the United States and helped to contain the so-called 'threat' of Iran has also been conveniently forgotten.