A Baghdad court on Sunday sentenced Raghad Saddam Hussein, the exiled daughter of the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, to seven years in prison for “promoting” her father’s outlawed Baath party, which was dissolved and banned after Saddam Hussein was ousted during the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.

According to the verdict, reviewed by AFP, Raghad Saddam Hussein was found guilty of “promoting the activities of the banned Baath party” during television interviews she conducted in 2021. Presently, in Iraq, anyone found displaying photos or slogans promoting the deposed regime can face prosecution.

While the ruling did not specify the particular interviews that led to her conviction, in 2021, Hussein spoke on the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya channel about Iraq’s conditions under her father’s authoritarian rule from 1979 to 2003.

During one of the interviews, she remarked, “Many people told me that our period was indeed a time of glory, of pride. Of course, the country was stable and rich.”

Raghad Hussein currently resides in Jordan, along with her sister Rana. Their brothers, Uday and Qusay, were killed by the US military in Mosul in 2003.

For many Iraqis, the twenty-five-year reign of Saddam Hussein is still remembered as a time of harsh repression.