Baghdad (AsiaNews) - Iraq's new president, Mr Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, said he would not sign a death warrant for captured former leader Saddam Hussein. In an interview with the Bbc, Mr Talabani, a lawyer and human rights advocate, said he has always opposed capital punishment, and made it clear that his principles would not allow him to sign such a document, despite all the suffering the Baathist regime had inflicted on his Kurdish community. "Personally, no, I won't sign," he said.

"But you know, the presidency of Iraq are three people. These three must decide. So I can be absent. I can go on holiday and let the two others [the vice-presidents] decide."

President Talabani did not believe the execution of the former president would undermine efforts to sap the insurgency. "I think if he'll be finished, many of his followers will give up their hope or their wishful thinking that one day he will come back," he said. Mr Talabani said he favoured an amnesty for Iraqi insurgents who had taken up arms out of disenchantment with the new regime.

He also said he believed members of the former ruling Baath Party should be allowed to take up jobs in civil life and the administration - but not in the armed or security forces, unless they had a track record of secret opposition to Saddam Hussein.

Asked about Islam's role in Iraqi politics, Talabani answered that while Islam was generally agreed to be the religion of the state and should influence its laws, there could not be an Islamic government. "In Iraq, it is impossible, because you have Kurds, Arabs, Shia, Sunni, Christians - such a kind of mosaic society. It is not Iran, it cannot be an Islamic society. If anyone tried to impose it, Iraq would be divided." He warned that any attempt to impose an Islamic government on Iraq would break up the country.

He said the Shia religious parties with whom the Kurds have struck a partnership to underpin the new government have agreed to a compromise whereby Islam will be one of several sources for Iraqi law.