A Baghdad court on Sunday sentenced in absentia the exiled daughter of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein to seven years in prison for "promoting" her father's outlawed Baath party.
Baath party was dissolved and banned after Saddam Hussein was toppled during the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.
According to the ruling, Raghad Saddam Hussein was found guilty of the crime of "promoting the activities of the banned Baath party" during television interviews she gave in 2021.
In Iraq today, anyone showing photos or slogans promoting the ousted regime can be subject to prosecution, reports AFP.
The ruling does not indicate the exact interviews over which she was convicted.
But in 2021, Raghad Hussein spoke on the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya channel about Iraq's conditions under her father's iron-fisted rule from 1979 to 2003.
Raghad Hussein lives in Jordan, along with her sister Rana. Their brothers, Uday and Qusay, were killed by the US army in Mosul in 2003.
For the majority of Iraqis, the quarter century during which Saddam Hussein ruled is still seen as a time of brutal repression.
Bd-pratidin English/Golam Rosul
