Saddam Hussein, the dictator thought responsible for the killing of 250 000 people, and the last best justification for the United States-British invasion of Iraq, will be shown in public for the first time since his capture either on Wednesday or Thursday, as the long process of bringing him to account begins.
Ayad Allawi, Iraq’s new interim prime minister and the man whose failed coup in 1996 ended in the torture and execution of scores of co-conspirators by Saddam’s regime, announced on Tuesday that the former tyrant and 11 others would be charged with a series of crimes.
Allawi said the dozen accused, currently being held in or near Baghdad by US forces, would be legally transferred to Iraqi custody today, but would still be physically held by the Americans.
This is a device to get around the legal problem that, with the formal end of the military occupation, the US is forbidden by international law to continue holding prisoners of war. At the same time, Allawi said the Iraqi prison system was not yet ready to safely confine Saddam and his co-accused.
Salem Chalabi, in charge of the Iraqi special tribunal which will try the former regime leaders, said that the transfer of custody technically involved arrest warrants, but that the process would mean 12 charges being read out to the accused, including a charge of organising the chemical attack on Kurds in Halabja which killed 5 000 people.
Iraqis have not seen the despised ex-dictator since brief clips of his tired, bearded, dazed face were released by US forces after his capture. It is likely that the charging of Saddam will be witnessed by only a handful of people, but will be filmed for television.
Allawi said: ”Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis of all ethnic groups are buried in mass graves. Those who we believe are most responsible will be tried in Iraqi courts.
”I know I speak for my fellow countrymen when I look forward to the day the former regime leaders face justice, God willing.”
Saddam and his co-accused would be offered the right to legal representation, funded by the state if necessary, and would have the right to remain silent, Allawi said.
”We will not see the trial of Saddam Hussein for a few months,” he went on. ”I urge the Iraqi people to be patient, and justice will prevail.”
Saddam’s wife Sajidah, has reportedly appointed 20 non-Iraqi lawyers to defend the family, but the Iraqi justice minister, Malik Dohan al-Hassan, said that the Iraqi lawyers’ union would have to give permission before foreign counsel could represent Saddam.
Alongside Saddam in the dock will be the former deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, ”Chemical” Ali Hassan al-Majid, former vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan and eight others.
One of the consequences of the chaos and violence which followed the invasion has been the lack of a full audit of the human cost of the Saddam regime.
In an article last year the chief executive of Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth, cited the figure of 250 000 victims and spoke of the mass graves being excavated in post-invasion Iraq.
”Among the occupants of these graves are 100 000 Kurdish men and boys machine-gunned to death during the 1988 Anfal genocide, 30 000 Shi’ites and Kurds slaughtered after the 1991 uprising, other Shi’ites killed during the 1980s because of their perceived sympathy for Iran, so-called Marsh Arabs killed as the Iraqi government drained the marshes … and many individual Iraqis of all faiths and ethnicities who were singled out, their lives ended, for real or perceived opposition to the regime,” he wrote.
However, Roth criticised the plans for an Iraqi court to try the accused, calling instead for an international tribunal such as that set up for the former Yugoslavia. His advice has not been heeded.
Monday was the first time since his swearing-in that Allawi had faced a press conference. He refused questions on anything other than the prisoner transfer and refused to reply to questions about what would happen if Saddam, like Slobodan Milosevic, tried to use his trial as an arena for self-justification. – Guardian Unlimited Â