Even though Iraq didn't want to give Saddam and his cohorts time to appeal, and even though they execute the people in only 30 days, strangely enough, there is one element of 'mercy', they drop the other charges against the defendants.
This serves a purpose. Even though they are going to be executed or have already been executed, Saddam and the other members of his regime could be tried in absentia for other crimes.
""The Iraqi Supreme Court has confirmed the death sentence on Ali Hassan al-Majid, Sultan Hashim al-Tai and Hussein Rashid al-Tikriti," the court head Judge Aref Shaheen told a press conference.
He and the other two condemned men are currently on trial for their roles in brutally crushing a Shiite uprising in southern Iraq in 1991,
but the charges against them will be dropped once they have been executed.
Saddam, driven from power by a US-led invasion in April 2003,
was executed on December 30 for crimes against humanity in a separate case and charges against him over the Anfal campaign were dropped."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070904/ts_afp/iraqtrialali