BAGHDAD - Saddam Hussein and
11 senior associates are reported to have appeared
before an Iraqi tribunal in Baghdad on Thursday charged
with crimes against humanity, but it will be many months
before the accused go to trial.
The proceedings
took place in secret. Also charged were former deputy
prime minister Tareq Aziz and Hassan Ali al-Majid, known
as "Chemical Ali" for his alleged role in using poison
gas against Kurds and Iranians.
The accused did
not have lawyers to represent them at the initial
arraignment, and formal indictments are unlikely to be
ready for months.
The US military, which had
held Saddam and his former aides as prisoners of war,
handed them over to Iraqi legal custody on Wednesday,
but will continue to guard them.
Saddam, who is
likely to be accused of ordering the killing and torture
of thousands of people during 35 years of Ba'athist
rule, was captured by US forces in December near his
hometown of Tikrit after eight months on the run
following his April 9 overthrow.
Specifically,
he will be charged with crimes against humanity for a
1988 gas massacre of Kurds, the 1990 invasion of Kuwait
and the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, according to Salem
Chalabi, a US-trained lawyer who has led the work of the
special tribunal set up to try the former president and
other top Ba'athists.
Kuwait has called for
Saddam to be sentenced to death over Baghdad's
seven-month occupation of the Gulf state in 1990-91.
Iraq's new National Security Adviser, Muwaffaq
al-Rubai, told the BBC that Saddam's trial would be free
and fair and would be broadcast live over radio and
television. He said that the special tribunal would be
able to impose the death penalty. He also said that
Saddam would not be allowed to turn the trial into a
political game by calling witnesses such as US President
George W Bush or British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
New Prime Minister Iyad Allawi insisted on the
handover of Saddam as a concrete sign of the return of
sovereignty to the Iraqi people after the occupation
that began with the US-led invasion in March last year.
The Americans had initially balked at a quick transfer
of Saddam. In the end they had little choice but to go
along after Allawi made his position public.
Analyst Alireza Nourizadeh, of the Center for
Arab and Iranian Studies in London, described as
"brilliant" the new Iraqi government's decision to
immediately assert jurisdiction over Saddam. It will
"demythologize" him, he said. "Watching Saddam standing
in front of an Iraqi judge and being questioned, that
will be a turning point, at least for those who were
still hoping Saddam would one day return [to power],"
Nourizadeh said. Nourizadeh said that for victims of
Saddam's rule there will be the satisfaction of knowing
they will have justice for their suffering.
Former political prisoners are curious about the
case that will be presented against Saddam. And they are
somewhat bitter that Salem Chalabi has not consulted
them. "We have stacks of documents, we all have stories
and we have so many eyewitness accounts," says Tareq
al-Shameri, spokesman for a prisoners league in his
office that was once used by the Iraqi air force
intelligence service. Several rooms of the large villa
are filled with papers from the archives of the former
regime. "We have offered assistance but we haven't heard
back," says al-Shameri.
Case for the
defense One of Saddam's lawyers, Jordanian
Muhammad Rashdan, said in Baghdad that the entire court
process was illegal. "This is [an] illegal war, and
[under] the international law, everything over that
would be illegal: the court is illegal, the judges [are]
illegal, to appoint the judges is illegal. Everything
will be illegal," he said.
Other prospective
lawyers of Saddam, based in the Jordanian capital Amman,
said earlier this week that none of the evidence
matters. Their legal firm says it has been given a power
of attorney to act on behalf of Saddam's wife. "His
excellency Saddam Hussein is still the legitimate
president of Iraq," Rashdan from the firm said in a
statement.
His colleague Osama Ghazzawi
confirmed the defense would challenge the legality of
the proceedings. "Clearly the invasion was illegal
because it was not condoned by the [United Nations]
Security Council, and an arrest and a trial that are the
result of an illegal act cannot be legal themselves." He
doubted, though, that his client would get a fair trial
in Iraq. "It will be a show trial, we are even afraid
for our lives to go and defend him," he said.
The Amman lawyers called the transfer of legal
custody "as empty and meaningless as the so-called
handover of sovereignty".
So far, the lawyers
have been denied all contact with Saddam. The lawyers, a
part of a larger group of 20 lawyers who include some
international names, are arguing for an international
tribunal to try Saddam.
(Inter Press Service,
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)
