Iraq tribunal lays charges against Saddam Hussein

By Luke Baker

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraq’s special tribunal has laid the
first formal charges against Saddam Hussein for crimes
committed during his 25-year rule and proceedings could begin
“within days,” the tribunal said on Sunday.

Its chief investigating judge told a news conference in
Baghdad Saddam had been charged, with three others, with
killings of Shi’ite Muslims in the village of Dujail in 1982.

The case is seen as relatively minor compared to
accusations of genocide and crimes against humanity that have
also been leveled at the former president. But investigators
say it may be easier to prove Saddam’s personal culpability in
the smaller case, leading to a swift conviction and possible
death sentence.

The judge, Raed Jouhi, said court proceedings could begin
within days, although diplomatic sources said he was probably
referring to pre-trial motions rather than the trial itself.

Under Iraq’s justice system at least 45 days must elapse
between the filing of charges and the start of a trial. Jouhi
did not say when the charges announced on Sunday had been
filed.

The other defendants are Barzan al-Tikriti, Saddam’s
half-brother and former head of Iraq’s intelligence service;
Taha Yasin Ramadan, former vice president; and Awad Hamad
al-Bander, former chief judge of Saddam’s Revolutionary Court.

The Dujail case relates to the killing of an estimated 140
residents after an attempt to assassinate Saddam as his convoy
passed through the village, 60 km (35 miles) north of Baghdad.

The retribution is also alleged to have included jailing
hundreds of women and children from the town in southern Iraq
and destroying the date palm groves that sustained Dujail.

OTHER TRIALS SOON

Dujail is among a dozen cases that prosecutors are working
to bring against Saddam amid increasing pressure from Iraq’s
new Shi’ite-led government for the former president to be
brought to justice nearly two years after he was captured.

Jouhi said Saddam and half a dozen of his former
lieutenants, including his feared cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid,
better known as “Chemical Ali,” and Tareq Aziz, a former deputy
prime minister, could also be charged in other cases soon.

“Other investigations are continuing and are nearing their
final stages,” he said, adding they could be completed in
weeks.

Those inquiries cover the crushing of Kurdish and Shi’ite
revolts after the 1991 Gulf War, the 1987-88 campaign against
Kurds in the north, and the killing of clerics, Jouhi said.

While Iraqi investigators, aided by U.S. experts, continue
to gather evidence against Saddam and others for war crimes,
crimes against humanity and genocide, much of their work has
been held up by the country’s dire security situation.

Of more than 200 mass graves identified around Iraq, only a
handful have been properly examined by forensic experts. The
difficulty of completing those investigations is one reason why
Dujail will now be the first crime for which Saddam is tried.

“Dujail is a discrete case and not as factually complex as
some of the others,” a source close to the tribunal has said.

If Saddam is convicted for the Dujail crimes, he could be
hanged even before other cases come to court. Some critics say
that such swift justice would mean the larger-scale crimes
would never be properly aired in court.

(Additional reporting by Mussab al-Khairalla)