Iraqi authorities plan to impose a curfew in Baghdad and all army leave has been cancelled as tensions grow ahead of Sunday’s expected verdict in the trial of Saddam Hussein and seven co-defendants for crimes against humanity in the town of Dujail 24 years ago.
With violence raging in the capital and across swathes of central Iraq, a senior Iraqi security official told the Guardian on Friday night that authorities are ”prepared to take every precaution and measure to stop insurgents and terrorists from undermining the rule of law”.
If found guilty of ordering the deaths of 148 Shia men and teenage boys in Dujail, and the subsequent destruction of farmland, following an assassination attempt against him in 1982, the former Iraqi dictator could face death by hanging.
The security official, who declined to be named, said there was evidence that former members of Saddam’s now banned Ba’ath party, which is reorganising into underground cells, planned to instigate a number of big attacks around the country if Saddam was sentenced to death.
Bracing for violence after the judgement, due to be read out in a fortified courtroom inside Baghdad’s green zone, the Defence Minister, Abdul-Qader al-Obeidi, cancelled army leave. ”All vacations will be cancelled and all those who are on vacation must return,” he said at a meeting with the Prime Minister, Nuri al-Maliki.
The official nervousness is an indication of how the United States-backed judicial process — intended to unite Iraqis by helping them to gain closure on years of Ba’athist rule — now threatens further division of the troubled country.
The United Nations reported on Friday that nearly 100 000 Iraqis are fleeing the country every month to Syria and Jordan in the face of increasing instability and sectarian violence.
Although a guilty verdict is likely to be welcomed by Iraq’s Shia and Kurdish populations, who suffered disproportionately under Saddam, the once-dominant Sunni Arabs who are the mainstay of the insurgency could see the decision as further evidence of their marginalisation.
During the nine-month trial, Saddam faced charges over the mass executions and torturing of Shia villagers in Dujail. Also on trial are Taha Yassin Ramadan, a former vice-president; Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, Saddam’s half-brother and a former head of the Mukhabarat secret service; Awad Ahmad al-Bander, a former chief judge; and four Ba’ath party officials from Dujail. The prosecutor has also asked for the death penalty for al-Tikriti and Ramadan. The other defendants are expected to get less severe sentences.
Officials at the Iraqi high tribunal said the verdict would probably be read out by the Chief Judge, Rauf Abdel Rahman, but would represent the views of a simple majority among the five-member panel hearing the case. The former president has the right to appeal to a nine-judge panel if convicted. If the panel upholds the decision the punishment must be carried out within 30 days.
Under Iraqi criminal law a death sentence must be carried out by hanging, though Saddam wants to be put before a firing squad. Saddam and six former officials are already standing trial in a second case, alleged genocide against the Kurds during the Anfal campaign of 1988. It is unclear whether those cases would move forward if Saddam was condemned to hang.
The Dujail trial has occasionally verged on anarchy. Three defence lawyers have been murdered; there has been procedural wrangling, political grandstanding by the accused and protestations of illegitimacy and injustice by the defence team. The credibility of the trial has been called into question by human rights organisations and the UN.
In a further twist, Saddam’s chief defence lawyer, Khalil al-Dulaimi, said on Friday he had written to the tribunal requesting a two-month adjournment to allow the defence to complete its presentations. He told Reuters in Amman that the tribunal was being unduly pressured by the US to deliver a verdict on Sunday to aid the US Republican party ahead of the midterm elections. — Guardian Unlimited Â