The rapid confirmation of the death sentence against Saddam Hussein is a long step backwards for Iraq. It is a brutal, if inevitable, display of victor’s justice that offends the principles that the US said it sought to uphold in toppling Iraq’s dictator. It will deepen the rifts between Shias and Sunnis, perhaps already fatal to Iraq’s unity.

The loud welcome that the US gave yesterday to the Iraqi court’s ruling was ugly. It sounded like an attempt to extract some proof of success, for want of any other. But if Iraq achieves stability, it may well now be under a Shia “strongman”, not quite the contrast to Saddam that the US intended.

When Saddam’s trial began, there seemed justification for it, if fragile. One hope was that, when Sunnis saw that he was dead, the insurgency would lose heart. But the vitality of that movement has shown that there are more where he came from. A second hope was that Sunnis could be convinced that the trial was fair, and would be reassured about their prospects as a minority. But the trial shed the appearance of fairness, and the past months of sectarian killing have been the worst since the invasion.

The proceedings were not, at the start, as flawed as many had feared. Witnesses did appear, despite intimidation; evidence (of a kind) was presented; Saddam did keep a defence team despite the killings of his lawyers. But rules for presenting evidence changed, and the defence was not given a proper chance to confront the storm of rumours hurled at the former dictator.

Most important, the court failed to maintain an appearance of independence from the Shia-led Government; the chief trial judge resigned this year, citing unbearable interference. Nouri al-Maliki, the Prime Minister, predicted a guilty verdict weeks before it came. Sunday’s confirmation of the death sentence came from Mr al-Maliki’s national security adviser, not the appeals court.

By announcing the sentence after this first trial on the killings at Dujail, the court decided that other charges were redundant. Yet those might have better established that the chain of command ran all the way to Saddam. They would also have supplied a longer record of Saddam’s atrocities, part of any value of such a trial.

At this point of turmoil, the death sentence is particularly regrettable. Tony Blair has hidden behind the clumsy formula that he opposes it, but that Iraqis are free to run their country. He had good grounds to say that this is a bad way to do so. The European Union is against the death penalty on principle, and Paul Bremer, the first US administrator of Iraq, scrapped it, fearing it would inflame the country. Britain still helps Mr al-Maliki to control Iraq and Mr Blair had every right to ask for a reprieve, even if he was bound to be rebuffed.

The Iraqi Government should have spared Saddam the death penalty. When it did not, Mr Blair should have condemned it: first, on principle, for adding to the brutality of a country already awash in blood; and secondly, on the pragmatic grounds that it will inflame Iraq’s sectarian wars even further.

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