Gunmen have killed a judge and a lawyer working for the Iraqi tribunal which will try Saddam Hussein and his senior officials, raising concern that insurgents have infiltrated what is supposed to be a secret court.
Barawiz al-Merwani (59) and his lawyer son Aryan (26) were ambushed when they left their home in north Baghdad on Tuesday, two days after the tribunal ruled that a first group of defendants must be tried for crimes against humanity.
A car with three gunmen opened fire as the two Kurdish men were about to step into their own car, hitting the judge twice and his son 11 times, according to family members. News of the attack emerged only on Wednesday.
One tribunal official suggested the killings may have been linked to a personal dispute but one of the judge’s surviving sons, Kikawz, said: ”We believe that the murder is politically motivated. The late judge had no personal problems with anybody at all. This is a terrorist act carried out by Ba’athists and terrorists.”
If it is confirmed that Islamist militants or members of the ousted Ba’athist regime were responsible the assassinations were a grave breach of what is supposed to be one of the world’s most protected courts.
Intelligence from insiders has enabled insurgents to kill scores of senior officials, clerics and army and police commanders in recent months. They struck the capital twice on Wednesday, killing at least 10 Iraqi soldiers and wounding dozens at an army base and checkpoint, compounding a febrile mood in the aftermath of Monday’s bomb in the town of Hilla which killed at least 115 people.
Iraqi authorities and US forces have made the tribunal’s security a priority. Its 400 officials are anonymous and extra effort has been invested in hiding the identities of 50 trial judges, and the tribunal’s exact location in Baghdad.
Hearings will be televised and open to a small number of journalists and members of the public. Officials say the spectacle of Saddam and his lieutenants being held to account for two decades of brutal dictatorship under which thousands perished will grip Iraq. Those convicted could be hanged or shot by firing squad.
Saddam (67) is expected to be tried next year after prosecutors build up evidence against him in other cases, possibly starting as early as next month with the trial of five men accused of purging the village of Dujayl in 1982 after residents ambushed the president’s convoy. Charges against the five, who include Taha Yasin Ramadan, the former deputy prime minister, and Barzan Ibrahim Hasan al-Tikriti, Saddam’s half-brother and a former intelligence chief, were referred last Sunday, a process similiar to an indictment.
The hearing took place in secret but at a press conference journalists were shown a silent 10-minute video of the defendants sitting at a wooden table, their hands cuffed, and an investigative judge sitting on a bench with a small Iraqi flag on his desk. Police in body armour stood in the background.
The following day at 9am a green Opel with three gunmen waited for Merwani and his son in Adhamiya, a largely Sunni Arab district where insurgents have been active for over a year.
The tribunal did not disclose which cases the judge was preparing to hear but unconfirmed reports said one of them was Saddam’s. – Guardian Unlimited Â