In power, Saddam Hussein spoke of visions of his bloodied corpse being dragged from his palace and ripped down to the bone by a vengeful mob. It was a more decorous scene when the Iraqi authorities took legal control of him in a secret hearing on Wednesday.
No journalists witnessed the appearance of Saddam and 11 of his henchmen before a judge in Baghdad at 10.15am local time.
The five-minute procedure marked the legal, but not physical, transfer of the accused from US to Iraqi control, enabling the run-up to what is likely to be a long trial.
According to Salem Chalabi, the head of the tribunal set up to try the leaders of the former regime, Saddam (67) looked to be in good health and sat in a chair as Chalabi explained his rights to him. He appeared to have lost weight and did not have the beard he was wearing when he was arrested. None of the prisoners was handcuffed or shackled. They entered one at a time.
Chalabi said Saddam said ”good morning” on entering the room, and asked if he could ask some questions. ”I think they had to do with whether he would have a right to counsel,” Chalabi said. ”He was told he should wait until tomorrow.”
Other members of the Baghdad 12 seemed nervous, Chalabi added. He said ”Chemical” Ali Hassan al-Majid looked frightened and trembled.
Chalabi said all the accused wore prison clothes, except for Saddam, who wore Arab dress. The judge asked: ”Are you Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti?” Saddam replied: ”Yes.” At the end of the procedure he was told to leave the room.
The ousted dictator and his former colleagues will be charged at a second hearing today, which will be filmed.
The charges will involve accusations of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the course of the regime’s actions: the invasion of Iran, repression of the Kurds, the invasion of Kuwait, repression of the 1991 Shia intifada and the torture and execution of thousands of perceived political opponents over decades.
It seems increasingly likely that, should he be convicted, Saddam will be hanged.
Iraq’s interim president, Ghazi al-Yawar, was quoted on Wednesday in the Asharq al-Awsat newspaper as saying Iraq would restore the death penalty.
The Iraqi national security adviser, Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, also said that Saddam faced execution if convicted.
”We promise the Iraqi people and the world that Saddam will receive a fair hearing,” he told BBC radio. ”The death penalty is going to be available to the court. We are now an independent sovereign country again and we need to reimpose the penalty.”
The trial, which may not begin until next year, will be televised. There is speculation that Saddam will try to use it as a platform to justify his actions and reclaim legitimacy as a leader in the eyes of those few Iraqi supporters who remain.
He could also attempt to embarrass countries like the US, Britain and France, which shored up his rotten regime with money, supplies and friendly relations even as he was killing and torturing his opponents and gassing the Kurds and Iranians.
One of the foreign lawyers hired by Saddam’s wife to represent him, Emmanuel Ludot of France, said the ex-dictator would not acknowledge any court or judge.
But Rubaie said: ”We are not going to allow this to be a political showdown or a political game.
”We are going to restrict ourselves to the crimes. He is going to try to make it a Milosevic-style political showdown, but we will not allow that to happen.
”As an Iraqi interim government, we promise our people and the Arab world, and the outside world, that Saddam will stand a fair trial. This is going to be the trial of the century.” – Guardian Unlimited Â