Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, who is currently facing charges of crimes against humanity, will face, for the first time, genocide charges over the Anfal campaign against Kurds that left around 180 000 people dead, the Iraqi High Tribunal said on Tuesday.
Similar charges are also being laid against six co-defendants, including Ali Hassan al-Majid, also known as Chemical Ali, chief investigating Judge Raed al-Juhi told reporters.
”The investigation has been completed for the Anfal campaign and the seven accused have been referred to the court for genocide,” he said.
The announcement came only a day before the trial of Saddam and seven others for the massacre of Shi’ite villagers from Dujail was set to resume.
Al-Juhi said that the exact date of the new trial, which would presumably take place after the conclusion of the Dujail trial, would be determined by the court itself.
Aside from Saddam, other defendants include Al-Majid, notorious for ordering the gassing of Halabja in 1988 which killed 5 000 people.
Others on the dock will include former minister of defence Sultan Hashem Ahmed and high-ranking Ba’athists Saber Abdel Aziz, Hussein Rashid al-Tikriti, Taher Mohammed al-Ani and Farhan al-Juburi.
Earlier on Tuesday President Jalal Talabani assured reporters that Saddam would be tried for all his crimes before any of the verdicts are implemented. Most of the cases pending against Saddam carry the death penalty.
Following a three-week break, the turbulent Dujail trial resumes on Wednesday with further testimony from Saddam as well as new evidence from the prosecution.
Saddam and seven other co-defendants are on trial for allegedly executing more than 140 inhabitants of the Shi’ite village of Dujail following an assassination attempt there against Iraq’s deposed president in 1982.
The recess was originally meant to give the judges time to draft the specific charges in the case, re-examine evidence and move the trial to the next phase, but much still remains to be done, said prosecutors. ”Saddam Hussein finished his testimony and now has to be questioned on Wednesday by the prosecution,” chief prosecutor Jafar al-Mussawi told Agence France-Presse on Monday.
Saddam’s lawyers, however, say that the former Iraqi leader hadn’t completed his testimony and still has plenty more to say.
Mussawi also said that the prosecution has new documents linking the defendants to the case.
”They involve communications and messages exchanged between high officials” of the previous regime over the Dujail affair, Mussawi said.
The issue of documents will be central to the trial over the next few sessions. However, several of the defendants cast doubt on the authenticity of the documents presented so far, many of which bear their signatures.
”These kinds of trials are generally trial by documents, especially as you go up the chain of command,” said Nehal Bhuta, who is following the trial for New York-based Human Rights Watch.
Over the last three weeks, according to officials close to the process, the tribunal has been scouring the nation for handwriting experts to prove that the various certificates were drawn up and signed by the defendants, something Iraqi courts have not had to contend with before. This could well cause further delays in a trial that has been become notorious for its awkward progress.
The 17 sessions of the trial so far have seen boycotts from defendants and their lawyers, lawyers assassinated, judges resigning and repeated grandstanding by Saddam and other former regime officials in the dock.
Following the last session, however, some experts noted that the trial seems to be settling into a kind of groove and actually moving forward.
”What’s been important about the last couple of sessions in March is that there has been no major crisis, which is a change,” said Miranda Sissons, a senior associate with the International Centre for Transitional Justice observing the trial.
”It is beginning to look like a legal process,” she said in comments, indicative of the lowered expectations for the trial.
In his last intervention on March 15, Saddam called for resistance as well as urged Iraqis to end the cycle of sectarian killings and civil strife begun by the destruction of a Shi’ite shrine in Samarra in February.
With the defence rejecting the legitimacy of the court, there have also been concerns expressed internationally over the fairness of the trial.
In a report to the United Nations Human Rights Commission, Leandro Despouy, who monitors the independence of judges and lawyers, pointed to ”notorious failings” in the trial and suggested the accused should instead answer to ”an international tribunal which could count on the cooperation of the UN”.
For his part, though, Saddam has rejected suggestions from his defence team to move the trial out of Iraq. ”Saddam told us on this issue, ‘I was born in Iraq and I want to die there’,” said Saddam’s Jordanian lawyer Salah al-Armuti. — AFP
